So Where has Lucarda Been?

After four months of being MIA I'm back, unfortunately I just don't have time to keep up on Marvel War of Heroes and all the best strats anymore. The truth is I found a game that has pretty much everything I could ask for in a mobile game.

While Rage of Bahamut was fun for a while, the game I'm currently playing is a hell of a lot more fun. The game is called Battle Camp! I've been in the beta and helping with the game for the last several months.

I haven't been writing about it while I was playing because I didn't want to get in trouble but now that it's about to launch I figured I'd let my readers know about it first.

So, what makes Battle Camp so much better than Marvel War of Heroes?

Well, let me tell you my experience with it.

I first entered the game and opened the game and began designing my character. At first I thought, wow I can choose from five looks, then I noticed the customize button. It was there I found out that I could make my character appear thousands of different ways. I wondered how much it cost for the various vanities and I was shocked to find out nothing. The amount of customization a player can do for their character is just absurd. There are also tons of costumes players CAN purchase though that look pretty funny/weird/cute/awesome.

So, after completing my character I entered the game. The combat system is like Puzzles and Dragons (for any who have played it). This is just a grossly better system over the TCG model. All of the movement and gem matching was seamless and I found being able to determine my attacks with a combination of skill+monster stats really refreshing.

At this point the similarities to Puzzles and Dragons ended. My avatar was in a zone in the world and immediately story dialog came up and began sending me on various quests. The amount of story+quests in this game borders on full MMO status. The story is also funny with tons of puns if you read to catch them.

So, what next? Farm, farm, farm for monsters which I always find to be a fun part of a game. Farming in Battle Camp isn't nearly as brutal as it is in Marvel. I spent about 5-10 minutes an hour playing trying to gather up pieces of rare monsters. As I gathered more and more rares I ended up joining a Troop (Battle Camps version of Guilds/Orders).

That's where the game started getting really addicting. The troops have built in chats, raids that players can do, and troop pets for the team to raise (plays an important role in one of the events). Ultimately through raiding with the rest of the troop I was able to accumulate a bunch of higher rarity monsters and evolve them. After that it's just fun to watch your damage cap rise and rise in raids.

Now, that's not all there is to do otherwise I would have been bored already. Much like Marvel there are several events. There are Troop Wars which pit troops against each other (sort of like Shield Training but different), there are Raid Events where the troop gathers items together to battle unique raid bosses, and also a dungeon event where players battle their way through waves of challenge mode caves to earn tokens and battle a boss. All of the events are extremely fun and each has their own unique story.

PvP deserves a special mention because it's real head to head. Players battle against other live players to see who is more skilled on the board as well as who has the better monsters. Obviously monsters give an edge (sometimes insurmountable, sorry commons don't beat epics unless the other guy forfeits), but the cool part is that I have on a regular basis crushed people with pets much rarer than mine. The reason? Because skill plays a role.

Overall, I'm sure I'm forgetting about something but I figured any of my readers deserved to know why I haven't been commenting/playing Marvel War of Heroes. I would love to see you all in Battle Camp though.

It is on iOS only right now with an android version scheduled later this year. It doesn't get released in the US until the 14th but if you want to get in early Canada is one of the beta countries so you can download it in the canadian app store.

If you do decide to join me in game please use my referral code! And as always, IGN Lucarda.

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Deadpool Boot Camp

Marvel War of Heroes newest event Deadpool Bootcamp is the same as the other raid events so you could just as easily read those posts for a lot of the information and it will still be the same. That information being:

1) If you want to rank well you need raider cards, the higher the rarity the better.
2) Loaning out raid cards to friends when you sleep and them loaning them to you are both great ways to maximize points while minimizing cost.
3) Some people will let you rent theirs if you have collateral. (I still recommend only using people you know because your collateral is worth far more after the event)
4) Be highly active but passive for the first half (attack but don't use RDS/PP)
5) Use all your stored RDS/PP for enraged bosses

Group Raiding

Those are the cliff notes. But this time I'm going to talk about something that not a lot of people do. Group sharing/questing. This is a great way for lower level Alliances to do well.

During Shield Training people are able to coordinate so several are on at once but during Raid Events it very much becomes an every man for themselves attitude. I'm not saying this is wrong, the requirement of Raider cards makes it being a group activity tough. But it's not impossible.

Attacking other peoples raid bosses gives you a damage bonus, and every little bit helps. If you reasonably got 10-20 Alliance members on simultaneously when enraged bosses were popping up and did some power summoning of bosses you could give yourselves quite a bonus.

The way it would work is you attack only your enraged bosses. Attack them once then share. If everybody does this once, not only will you get a damage bonus for enraged but you will also get one for supporting a friend. With everybody doing it, everybody would benefit. It also would turn a boring solo grind activity into something a little more fun if you set up a few times to do this after enraged bosses started popping up.

It's also a nice way for people who maybe can't afford the best raider cards to get an edge.

Deadpool

Deadpool will be insanely priced. I'm not sure how high he will go, but I believe he'll be higher than any of the other reward cards. The reason for this is two things. The first is that he is a top notch speed card with a Relatively High Proc to pure attack. This is the card people stacking Spider-man have been waiting for. Second, come on, that art is hilarious and unique.

So, if you were going to push in a Raid Event this year...I'd recommend this one.

Lets Talk Shield Training

So, by now people should know enough about Shield Training to make some valid strategies and how to do well. If you don't, check back at some of my previous posts regarding it.

Instead, I'd rather address things people do that are just bad decisions. So, here is my list of things I see people doing because somewhere they think it gives them an advantage.

1) Not Building Walls

I understand that people think of these as 'free points' but the amount of points per attack power players get from destroying a wall is much lower than the points per attack power a player can get from attacking a player.

2) Single Card Defense

I don't get this one. Apparently people haven't realized yet that they are penalized for using single cards on defense? If you don't believe me...attack somebody with a single card assigned. You can attack them over and over again while receiving full or near full points. Don't do it.

3) Lockout Strategy

It doesn't work. People who use this strategy are simply saying..."I plan on losing, but I plan to take all the fun out of the game while doing it." An active team can still accumulate far more points. Now, can you do it? Yes, but you're a dick ruining the game for others and your odds of winning aren't actually increased.

4) Minimum Attack/Defense Requirements

This is something that's been around since Rage. Realistically, it's not a good determiner of how people will do. Instead you want to ask them how much PP they are willing to spend. People will aim for players they can beat naturally. But some players with high stats will merely do the minimum and do nothing after that. It's important to find members who are willing to throw down, not just members stats.

Those are my big four. But for those who don't know, the keys to winning are:

1) Active Players
2) Coordinated Battles
3) Solid PP stockpiles
4) Strong enough decks to break defenses
5) Good Attack/Defense Leaders

Captain America vs Red Skull

So, I anticipated a Hydra event for some time so it's good to see one showing up. Red Skull is one of my favorite villains, even though Captain America is a little 'too good' for my taste in heroes.

First things first. I'd like to address the Raider Card Changes. I get that people are getting continually frustrated at the diminished value of Raid Reward Raider Cards. The fact that an SR Raid Reward has not only less boost than its purchased equivalent, but less boost than its Rare equivalent is pretty annoying.

And I have to say, I am very disappointed in the change. For high level players this change makes very little difference, but for low level players this change makes rising in rank even more difficulty.

Couple this with the changes to Personal Power Packs being given out, I struggle to think of how low level players can improve their decks without spending money. I feel these change will cause the game to lose players faster as they hit a wall in improving their deck.

Now, on the upside. The value of PP had been diminishing, actually down to about seventy five cents per PP. This was partially due to how easy it was to get Personal PP during the Raid Event. So, the one thing we can look forward to is PP increasing in value back up to its dollar hopefully (but generally when things drop they don't go back up). This of course...will make it even harder for new players to get ahead.

Overall, these changes are bad. And a game that had a possible shelf life of 2 years probably has a shelf life of one as a result of them. This is due to the fact that these changes increase the chances of losing new players, and veteran players will leave naturally. I find it hard to believe that given these changes that Marvel won't be losing players at a higher rate than which they gain them.

That's enough of a rant there about the changes.

Captain America vs Red Skull

So, for this event obviously there are certain tricks. Trick number one is ideally you don't want to use any of your RDS bars until enraged bosses come along. This way the damage done is significantly more. On top of this, try to stack as many raid cards as you can for the bonus damage.

Trick number two involves retrieving prizes from raid bosses. Ideally, you want to let the inbox for your prizes get to the full 30 max before accepting them. The idea behind this is you will summon weaker bosses making them easier to finish and get RDS bars. If you gradually prizes as you beat the bosses, you will gradually get tougher bosses. This will mean that you may have 15 battles that take 2 RDS each instead of 30 that take 1 RDS each.

Trick number three involves teamwork. Ideally you'll want to target shared bosses regularly. If your Alliance set aside a two hour period during enraged bosses where you all farm enraged bosses, hit them once, then share them, you can look forward to a bonus as well. This boost to damage is welcome because it promotes active participation.

Trick number five involves renting/borrowing cards. Players all have a limited amount of time they can play and need to sleep. A strong alliance with good bonds will often be able to pass around cards for people to use even if they didn't purchase them.

Finally trick number six is to know your damage. I try to always hit the highest level boss available with a 1 RDS, a 3 RDS and a 6 RDS attack. I normally write these down so I know how much to use on certain bosses. Then when enraged come along you just triple it.

Anyway, Good luck on the event.

Sorry about Delays

Sorry about delays on posts. I wanted to have the Raid Info and my take on it before launch but I've been working on a project that requires a huge amount of my time. I plan on making some time this weekend to do an update on the event and the changes as well as.

I have yet to get time to update my best decks either. They haven't shifted a lot in SSR and only slightly in SR. Rares have probably been effected the most.

Finally, yes, I am just as annoyed as you all are at the shifts in the way events are operating. Just remember, everybody is in the same boat so if you can't get personal PP, neither can others.

Anyway, I'll have an event update post by Sunday.

SHIELD Enforcement Training Four

Sorry about the delay on the SHIELD Enforcement Training. With some of the game changes recently I wasn't sure if they were going to perform significant changes to SHIELD Enforcement Training.

Structure:

For those who aren't aware, I hope that's very few anymore, SHIELD Enforcement Training is an event where players and their alliances compete to reach the top rankings. Players declare a training, afterwards the system matches them against another alliance, and then they destroy the defense leader and wall before going to town on the alliance.

Obviously the outcomes of these wars are heavily influenced by the amount of PP a team is willing to spend, but having powerful members always helps.

Changes:

For this SHIELD Enforcement Training a ranking system was added called the Instructor System. As you raise your valor in battle you improve in rank and eventually get upgraded to another instructor. As you do this you gain rewards for each increase which consists of shards, rally points, silver, training power packs, etc. While do high level players this change may seem like 'who cares?' to low level players it gives them some additional incentive to battle, especially for the poor souls trapped in temporary alliances.

Player Bans:

Haha. So, it's no real secret that top level alliances in the previous SHIELD Training had been using an exploit that caused them to earn about 300-500 extra Valor per PP. I'm not going to name the specific alliance but I know from a friend that one specific top level abused it profusely. This went mostly unnoticed but I guess during the downtime between trainings Mobage learned about it (Not from me).

Anyway, the bug was that when a player hit the attack key rapidly they would perform about five full attacks on the same target even if they only had the attack power for one. I learned about this bug in the last HW from a friend and didn't even tell my alliance about it for fear that some of them might use it, figuring that it would eventually end in bans.

It's nice to see Mobage finally grew a pair of testicles and did something about the cheaters though.

Two Cheap Strategies Everybody Needs to Know About:

1) Alt Attacks - Using alternate accounts to spam attack a specific defense leader and lower their defense points. This tactic is common amongst low level alliances but falls off the higher you get, mainly because a 30% morale boost with a decent attack deck is all you really need to break a defense leader.

It can be very frustrating for low level players who have a baller defense leader to lose to this strategy. The key is...your defense leader needs to be using PP to replenish.

2) Lockout Strategy - I find this to be the most boring and awful strategy in the game. This strategy is accomplished by one player being the only one who's attacking. This way as your Alliance attacks all of this team members are worth low amounts of Valor while he farms your team for proper amounts of valor.

This strategy is effective at high levels because players don't want to spend PP to only get 120-160 Valor Points. Even if you end up winning the war, you feel like you lost.

This strategy is something that Mobage really needs to look at correcting because it is the epitome of Anti-Fun. Most notably, for the Alliance using it - only one player is really playing while the others sit back and do nothing. For the Alliance that it is getting used on - They just stop participating in that battle because even though they CAN win, they want to get a premium on their PP.

The only person having fun out of 60 players is the single person participating. Although some people will say 'I don't mind not having to participate as long as I get my rewards' that isn't playing. That's having somebody play the game for you and it's sad.


Anyway, those are my thoughts for this SHIELD Enforcement Training. Good luck and have fun!