Let's talk about the conclusion first: Although this game is dressed in the shell of match-3 + otome, it is more competitive than expected. However, its balance idea is completely opposite to that of traditional MOBA. It is the evil way of "you are strong, let you be strong, I rely on the mechanism to survive".
You may think I'm kidding, what kind of competitive environment can we talk about in a match-making game? But I played it seriously for a week and found that the depth of this game lies entirely in numerical collision and resource circulation. Looking at the elimination link alone, it is a common exchange-type match-3, but the beauty is that it turns the "prescription" into a skill card. What you synthesize in the game is not a prop, but a game of BUFF and DEBUFF. For example, the cold general line, his damage reduction mechanism has no sense of existence in PVE, but once the time limit level is reached, the "shield to anger" passive is the T0 level guarantee. On the other hand, the Tsundere Prince's initial burst is ridiculously high, and three consecutive rounds can trigger an extra round. However, in the later stage, when the monster pile's health line is thick, this character is obviously weak, because his skill chain is all about "consecutive elimination", and once the layout is not good, it will be a blank slate. This is like the jungler in KPL who is strong in the early stage but is useless in the later stage. When the rhythm is slow, he has to wait for the opponent to make mistakes.
The most worth talking about is the role of Miao Jiang Gu Master. His "gu parasitism" mechanism can theoretically steal one or two moves from the opponent's turn. Sounds invincible, right? However, the magnification rate given by the plan is very low, and the trigger conditions are extremely harsh. The specified color elimination must be completed within a specific number of steps to be effective. I tried more than 20 games, and the winning rate was less than 40%. It is a typical "high operation and low fault tolerance", which is the same as the situation when the sword master was hacked three times in a row. But if you fully use the skin effects, the visual feedback will give you a strong operating pleasure. This is actually the "psychological balance" method planned, and the numerical values are stretched and the expressiveness is increased.
The skin system also has to be complained about. The so-called "rich and exquisite skins" are not just good-looking, some skins have hidden attributes. For example, the "Night Clothes" skin of the Evil Ranger has a weak falling speed bonus on the frame, which is almost invisible to the naked eye, but the difference is only a few tenths of a second in the racing level. This kind of hidden numerical difference is a proper "Krypton gold warrior" in competitive content. Fortunately, the core plot level does not use this set, otherwise the Buddhist farming party would have disappeared long ago.
What really makes this game feel like an e-sports game to me is its rhythm of major version updates. Each update will adjust the skill coefficients of some characters. It is obvious that the new characters of the current period are forced to be promoted, but the compensation mechanism for the old characters is also considered conscientious. Last time, Immortal Chief's healing coefficient was cut by 15%, but a new mechanism of "overflow healing to shield" was added to the backhand. After a little research, you will find that the upper limit is actually higher. This is very similar to the idea of version iteration, weakening is false, and rebuilding the niche is true.
So if you go with the mentality of "just play it", this game is a brainless and fun game. You can explode the whole screen if you click casually, which is very comfortable. But if you want to compete for a spot on the leaderboard, you have to study the skill frames, resource conversion and scene restraint of each card. This kind of "casual on the surface, hardcore on the inside" design is much more interesting than the single numerical crushing of many current PC games.
Finally, a piece of advice: Don't just focus on difficult gameplay. I seriously feel that the farming system of this game is the real core of "operational science". There is an optimal solution between the maturation time of medicinal materials and the distribution of physical strength. If you play well, it can even feed back the initial BUFF that eliminates the level. This kind of design that stitches together leisure and competition does have something to it. Don't be fooled by "Lie Ping", it's all a game behind it.