I’ve been dwelling on this a bit.
It’s no secret that some heroes lag the game when they are on the field, particularly in hectic team fights. This was a thing even back when there was only 3v3 modes and became even more prominent with the introduction of 5v5.
It’s not usually a problem for me because my mobile device gets upgraded at least every 2 years due to battery issues I usually have and the software gradually clogging itself up with updates and random installation of programs.
However, I find that these problems with heroes components lagging games through heavy graphics demands should be addressed rather than left alone. I want to see some heroes show up more in the One for All mode for one.
In my experience, the heroes and their abilities that could lag the game are:
- Ardan’s ultimate. One of the reasons double Gauntlet was good was that it lagged everyone’s devices at the same time as making the terrain near impossible to navigate, lol.
- Petal (not as heavy as some others on the list, but her munions does lag the game on an older phone I have).
- Fortress’ ultimate. Particularly when in a full on 5v5 team fight where everyone is present.
- Samuel’s B - Drifting Dark. Historically bugged graphically anyway.
If I miss anything, feel free to state what it is. I usually have ok devices to play VG on, so I rarely ever feel the brunt of the graphics demands the game ask of the device it is installed on.
In my opinion, the way that the above lag inducing abilities could be altered to reduce lag are:
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Change Ardan’s ultimate to maybe be a self-empowerment ability that supercharges other aspects of his kit such as greater heal from his perk and stronger A and B stats. To me, while Gauntlet is a prominent and unique aspect of Ardan’s kit, it always felt to have very little impact (bar the time that Echo existed) because of the ease in dodging the stun by moving quickly or walking out with a Reflex Block. Some heroes can defend themselves sufficiently even when trapped by the Gauntlet too. By changing it, it could help prevent lag and make Ardan’s ultimate feel more impactful in a subtle way.
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Petal to me can’t be really fixed. Her visual design for herself is great, but her kit is a mess you could say. A full overhaul, taking into consideration graphical issues, I think is the best course of action.
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Fortress ultimate is probably one that is most difficult to work with. To me, it’s too good at times for him (as they give great chase power as the wolves trigger his Heroic Perk and make it easier to apply his B’s effects) but is also a double edged sword when facing the likes of Magnus, Varya and Vox (because the wolves become bounce targets). Fortress kit, while great, has always felt a bit iffy to balance to me because of how his A when strong is a free Warthreads all game, his B scaling with enemies health and his ultimate giving him great plusses overall but being too easy to counter. The way I see it, they could either give Inara’s ult with some difference to Fortress to rework his ult or rework the kit overall to make it easier to balance him out.
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Samuel’s B to me has the easiest solution, which is to make it a self-buff with some drawback to it. This is so that he doesn’t need to spawn a big cloud of darkness to do stuff and can offer a window of weakness after he losses his B buff in tandem with maybe touching up a bit other parts of his kit.
What do you think? How would you rework lag inducing stuff in VG so that they don’t lag (and can show up in One for All)?