LogFAQs > #972599443

Week 5:

This week was fairly humdrum. No matches were interesting, and there was not a lot to say here. Some nerds got bullied, really. If this week told us anything, it's that Low Tier is the most lopsided one -- the fact you lose access to so many mercs means you either went low heavy and have tools left, or you just don't get and god-damn whomped. Next!

Week 6:

Way back in the days when the Test Run was young, a certain new kind of mercenary was introduced. Built to address certain roster deficiencies (mercenaries trend, by and large, glassy and deepsy, much like characters in fighting game rosters -- unlike fighting game devs, we are interested in fixing this issue for the sake of fixing it, as team composition is very relevant for mercs gameplay), we introduced Phantasmal Mercenaries.

Deliberately low-cost mercenaries with prices somewhere around a third to half the cost of a normal battle merc, Phantasmals were conceived as simpler builds with a focus on battle power. The initial batch was, as an illustrative example, the Cyberdemon from Doom (1 and 2, not the new ones), Rathalos from Monster Hunter, and Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower. Phantasmals were a liberating addition to the admin toolkit -- with them, we could introduce well-liked characters with not that much depth to them without having to make a tortured build with shaky ability concepts, or add characters who were there only to allow for more varied teamcomps without depriving a worthier mercenary of their slot. Some could have workable abilities, but by and large they were meant to be fighters, and all of them, with no exception had no extra abilities to gain via EXP.

The theory was, Phantasmals could round out a squad at a solid price (and cost less upkeep than normal in turn to emphasize this), but would not provide as much ability hax as a normal merc in exchange. Week 6 was the week where Phantasmals finally came out to play, as four out of six teams (Eddv's, Aria's, Mewtwo's and JC's) deployed a Phantasmal in the final week. The result was filled rosters by and large, and a set of remarkably explosive matches. What was the conclusion after watching them go to town?

Smashing success...with some fixes required. Players responded to Phantasmals very positively, which came as no surprise. 'More mercenaries, and cheap' is just enjoyable in general. People love making themselves stronger, and Phantasmals provided a solid way to buy power without waiting for many weeks on end to slowly accrue infra. Of course, the new addition was not born perfect. Players worried Phantasmals were too good and too oppressive, and expressed concerns they were undercosted. As the dust settled on the matches of the week, this is what I saw:

-Phantasmals added lots of argumentative value to teams. They did their job correctly there.
-Some Phantasmals were a little underupkeeped. In some cases, this was on purpose (The Cyberdemon was priced at a tiny 20 GP and only cost 1 real upkeep because he had no active ability of any sort), but a few others were a little too cheap. Metal Gear RAY stood out as an example, an absolute behemoth of a 5/week tank that cost only 1 upkeep to field. Latter-day Phantasmals were not discounted to the absolute lowest possible upkeep point, and this was for the best, and neither were lowbie Phantasmals as a matter of course due to their overall availability, instead packing somewhat meatier ablities than higher tier Phantasmals to compensate. Overall, Phantasmals will likely not always be 1/weeks going forward, and adjusting some of the underupkeeped ones is probably a good idea.
-Phantasmals were, by and large, very easy to understand. People knew what they did quickly, and that was useful. Having mercs that don't take a lot of research to sell or grasp makes for a healthier game environment -- one main dish or two is sufficient, not every dinner should be a banquet!

In the end, notably, the team with the most Phantasmals (Mewtwo's) emerged the victor. His team had a rocky start, losing for free to Boko on week 1 in low, and again getting destroyed in week 5 in low by JC, but dominant performances in mid and high tier ensured his success in securing the Test Run's championship. This, interestingly, suggests to me that in spite of conventional wisdom saying you should build to win Low, punting low tier a little (just a little) and going mid heavy then flexing to high is viable. We'll see if this holds true in M5 proper.

And with that, the Test Run came to an end, with a few show matches serving as a coda. These ranged from solo duels of high tier asskickers, to mid tier duo battles, and culminated in a 3v3 high power marquee match between Sora, Sephiroth and Jesse Faden vs. Zero (MMZ), Kefka and Selvaria Bles where terrain split the latter team in half, leading to Team SSJ to score a dominant victory. A little anticlimactic, but hey, they can't all be bangers -- we'll have plenty of fun matches in the main game proper.

And with that, it is time to start talking about things that need to change based on the Test Run! More in the next post.