How I’d Fix Power Rangers: Legacy Wars

- 4 mins read

Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Some of these changes actually ended up in the game, but I think that’s because the changes were so obvious that it would’ve been impossible to not make them.

A few days ago, I wrote an article detailing my thoughts on the mobile game Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, and some of the major problems regarding the design of its combat mechanics. In this follow-up piece, I’m going to try my hand at (theoretically) fixing them by way of pretend balance patch notes, because I’m a massive nerd and I apparently have nothing better to do.

Changes will be listed in bullet point form, with commentary on the change underneath in italics.

General Ability System

  • Strikes will always cause Strikethrough against Breakers, even if the Breaker would hit first
    Most of the time, if you get knocked down and the opponent is in your face, there’s not a single thing you can do if they have a Breaker stocked. You can’t block it, and no Strike will come out quickly enough. The Strike > Breaker interaction being more strict remedies this, giving the player actual defensive options.

  • Players can no longer cast Block or other Defensive abilities to interrupt combos
    Seriously, this makes a frankly ridiculous number of moves completely worthless in the face of single-hit knockdown and launcher Strikes. With this change, you can now feel free to win neutral without fear of getting punished for it.

  • Breakers now only deal full damage as a Blockbreak; otherwise only deal 75% of full damage
    Breakers are really strong right now. They break defenses, start combos and do a ton of damage while they’re at it. Along with the change to the Strike>Breaker interaction, this should reinforce the Breaker>Defend dynamic while not sacrificing all of the Breaker’s general utility.

  • Causing Blockbreak against Defend-type Assist abilities will cause a short stagger animation for the player initiating the Assist
    Hitting the opponent’s Assist character will deal damage, but still allow the opponent to act fairly quickly. This change will prevent players who correctly use Breakers against Defend-type Assists from being punished for it

  • Non-Block Defend-type Assist attacks will not trigger unless they catch a Strike ability
    Defend-type assists can do damage regardless of whether or not the opponent performed a Strike, giving these abilities way too much utility. This change will make these sorts of abilities closer to catch counters, reinforcing their purpose and requiring a bit more thought to go into them.

Ability Deck

  • Players can now drag up on an Ability card to discard it and draw a new card at any time; any new cards drawn this way will have their cooldown reset regardless of available Power
    The biggest problem with the game from a functional standpoint was the inconsistency of options available to the player. Traditional methods of increasing consistency (i.e. creating a new card slot for Blocks) all proved to be unworkable without completely reworking the game from the ground up. This change keeps the core of the Ability Deck intact while giving players some much needed control over their available options

Miscellaneous Changes

  • Hurtboxes adjusted on various attacks so that attacks do not miss when they should hit
    I have seen, on more than one occasion, Strike attacks completely whiff through the startup of an opponent’s Breaker as if it were invincible, resulting in me getting punished even though I made the correct decision. This will stop that from happening, hopefully.

  • Players may now queue up abilities while knocked down
    This will work in conjunction with the Strike>Breaker interaction change to help with defence after a knockdown.

  • Assist calls can no longer dodge attacks during their startup
    I don’t mind the idea of assists having a defensive use if well-timed, but you can dodge Breakers with Xandred, which is kind of messed up.

This should more or less resolve all of the problems with the game. Characters being strong or weak was mostly due to how the game was constructed, and addressing the issues presented above should bring those stronger characters into line, allowing for greater diversity in team building without resorting to nerfing specific characters.

If nWay reads this and decides to enact some (or all) of these changes, they’re more than welcome to. Feel free to credit me for the ideas, though.