A look forward to 2018

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

With 2017 almost behind us, I would like to look forward to 2018. With the current state of the game, I have some concerns with what myself and a lot of other players are seeing. There have been some very good things this year, but some of these other items just seem like a black cloud that just won’t go away.

Communcation: This is a major issue at this time. Whether it is just a current as today with the HP sale, release information, bugs, technical issues, etc. I feel the player base reacts very quickly to report some of these issues like the I Phone X screen issue and D3/Demi try and fix it as soon as they can. Yes some fixes cannot happen as quick as we would like, which sucks, but it does take time to fix. Others, this is where issues concern and where I see the player base getting more and more jaded towards D3 and Demi. Bruce Banner could be the worst 5* that there is. He is just hopeless with no buff in sight. There was an issue with the Hulk side of Banner not being boosted during the Saakar Event. This was reported and they said they would look into this. While I can understand why this could of been over looked because he is really 2 different characters. As soon as Banner was reported as the 5* essential for Venom Bomb, it was asked by the players if this was resolved. Never got an answer. We warned days before this was up in game. Nothing. Once the event started the first thing I did was to flip him to make sure Hulk was boosted. Guess what. He wasn’t. Players asked and nothing was every communcated back. These are the examples I am talking about. The lack of any type of communication back on major issues just seems like it is going away more and more.

Cheating: Yes yes, I know. Just shut up already but It is hard to. You know there were major hacks that cheaters were never punished for. Every month or so there will be a thread that pops up to ask about this and why things were not done. The big one with nobody punished was in March. Now I have to word things carefully due to being asked to not say certain words or phrases, which I understand. It is just very frustrating to know for a fact that this was done among others things and these people are still in the game. Give info, nothing done. They knew it was an issue but made a business decision not to handle this per their own rules. Just really a shame. I just hoping that this will be taken seriously because in 2017, this seems to be a very very low priority.

D3/Demi presence: While I do understand that this is the official communcation place for D3, we all know that we can get info in other places quicker. Line and Disocrd are quicker are getting information. This is how a good segment of players get out information about things as soon they happen, like Strange Sights PVE door 1 in Sub 1 not having the right points. While I do not know how an Offical Account would work on Line, it would be great for D3/Demi to embrace Line. Having an official channel would be awesome. Imagine that 1 time every 2 weeks having a live chat for 1-2 hours with the dev team. My God, you know how much this would help? Even making a presence here on the forums would do a lot. Yes there will be trolls, they is in life to, but cannot run and hide from the player base that loves this game and want to see it live on. Complete blackout mode like it is now is just very disheartening. Just seems like they don’t care, and talking to some, I know they do. Just need to cut the red tape and get on the same page with this partnership. And yes. The players are apart of this partnership too.

Player involvement: It has been said my people that have been around longer than me (1300 days in) that we are the Beta testers. I am aware that some very high end and spenders do have some communcation to the Dev team, it would be great to have more player feed back before things roll out. Yes I know some things are very confidential and not sure how this would work, but to have a “task force” of some players to show why some things might not work well would be amazing. Heck, even listening to our feedback and to make sure things get fixed before events are put out, like Banner boosted and Hulk not. A lot of the players I know play PVE and PVP on a high end and would love to be able to help out to make this game bigger and better.

Bugs Bugs Bugs: These just seem to keep coming in waves. What is frustrating is if there is a bug that benefits the players, 25% LT 5* rate, this is fixed ASAP but other issues seem to go on forever. Now, I am in sales and cannot program a thing except Excel, I just don’t understand why some of these things take so long to get fixed. Here is another example, when 4* Cage was released (September 2016), his passive was insane. They started to do this dumb screen shake thing. The event after Cage was released, he was a 4* E and I had to stop using him. His board shake passive would go off every turn when a power was cast and guess what, it was a heavy goon event. I came here to the forums and begged for this to be looked at. I couldn’t do anything with his node because it would really make me dizzy and others agreed. They took this out within days of the thread. If they could get that fixed quickly, why not other issues. Heck this was even a Hot Fix they sent out. Again, if this can be done this quickly, why not other things.

Customer Service: This is a sore subject for a lot of people. It seems on some issues, you just cannot get anywhere. There is currently a player that had his son sell his 5* Dr Strange level 453. They said there is nothing they can do to help. I mean really? This isn’t like OML nerf and selling him, pulling the tokens and not getting what you want. You don’t get any tokens for selling another 5*. So why could they not help out a paying customer on this. A 16 cover 5* character. We have seen them take care of some people better than others. Just doesn’t seem like they can help or maybe they are restricted to help. Either way, just seems terrible. i know there are other times they have done great things, which is good, but most seems like they leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Overall: I love this game. I have supported this game financially a lot, and come Friday, it will be a lot more. I want this game to keep going. I want to keep playing because I love the Marvel Universe, the interaction with the players worldwide, the friends I have made and some of the people I have met in real life. I am just concerned with some of these items and where this game will go in 2018. I hope it will remain strong.

What are your hopes for 2018?

2

my hope is less Dark Avengers, but overall i love your post.

3

PvP change of some variety.

More boss events.

More consistency of scheduling right now they can’t seem to keep even old patterns straight…

SCL10 & better/more meaningful reward gaps across all SCLs.

SCLs added to more features, primarily boss events (or at least better boss event rewards).

4

More new events would be nice. New game modes too.

Boss events on a regular schedule, I’d love to see civil war and ultron again. Sinister 6, Thanos too. I love them all. Maybe a boss event for every new 5* release? Run at the same time as a story event too?

Make a gauntlet based on SCL with rewards to match? Again run it with a story event.

4* PvP needs to be a thing.

New node in Daily Deadpool should happen this year. Make crash daily and make a 5* node on a 5 day schedule instead. Maybe make ddq seasonal and overhaul the taco tokens completely.

5

Hopes?
Bug fixes, 4* PVP.

What will we get?
6* characters nobody asked for and some more terrible PVP ideas like hazard tiles that nobody asked for.

6

That’s about right. We know they are coming. I would think we will see 6* in the late part of the 1st quarter to beginning of 2nd quarter. Which is very sad. That might be the end game for some people.

7

No one is a bit extreme. I almost put 6*s in my wants list. Only reason I didn’t is because most of us can see it coming as rockett said.

8

Why are 6s a forgone conclusion? Is this real or just the forums’ pessimism? I see the signs of the 5 tier opening up, but I don’t think that means 6*s are coming, necessarily. I sure hope not.

What I am mainly looking forward to is the new MCU entries and if/how they will tie in to MPQ. There’s Black Panther, Infinity War, Jessica Jones season 2, Antman and the Wasp, plus however the reacquired Fox rights will fit in to it.

9

I’m expecting very little new and impressive. Considering how tight they’ve been over Christmas, this is maybe a sign of things to come with D3.

10

I agree, I fear that the holidays are a bad sign for things to come. I want the game to be rejuvenated, no more stalling. I fear that the game was progressing too quickly towards what the developers consider the “end game”, so they are stretching things out further and thinner by making things even less rewarding. I admit to being a pessimist, so who knows. I just feel like the game is spiraling… it’s not like it’s gonna die, but it’s not going anywhere positive either. I don’t see much difference in the game from a year ago. There have been changes for sure, but nothing that had a major impact on me personally. Bonus heroes are mostly just 3s, a tier I have had completed for over a year (or continue to re-complete with every new release)… I am not high enough to play SCL9, and I still struggle with pvp. At this point, lack of improvement equals a negative change.

11

I was planning to post a 2018 wishlist thread but this seems like its basically the same idea. Below is MY ideal vision of MPQ done in a way that I would hope is still realistic and profitable for D3 to implement.

1) Stop building reward systems around getting a character their first 13 covers and acknowledge the fact that they ACTUALLY require 113 covers.

This point gets expanded upon later on other points but the bottom line is that the game seems built around helping people build towards a 13 cover 4* character. Its as though the devs have completely forgotten that we have 50ish 4*'s who need 113 covers and a 5* tier that also needs 113 covers.

Why do I think this is profitable for D3?

Simply put people need roster slots. Being more generous in your 4* cover rewards means that more players feel pressure to spend in order to avoid waste. Being more generous with CP means players have more pressure to spend in order to avoid wasted champ rewards and roster slot space from ISO demands.

D3 can continue to be as stingy about HP as they’ve always been because that appears to be their primary money maker combined with whales going after new characters.

More Rewards = More Fun + Faster Progression (Less burnout/greater player retention) + More pressure to buy HP for Roster Slots + More demand on ISO to champion characters to start getting champ rewards.

2) CL10 Difficulty release along side a CL8 and 9 Revamp

Difficulty should feel rewarding and WORTH IT. This simple idea exists in just about every video game and yet here we are with MPQ and lots of players capable of doing well in CL9 are dropping to 8, 7, or lower because the ‘loss’ of progression and placement rewards are no where near compelling enough to discourage this practice.

CL9 pvp is the ultimate showcase of rewards being stingy for the current state of the game.

Why is it that only the top 10 out of 500 people getting a single 4* cover for placement? Again, 50ish 4*'s needing 113 covers each and only 2% have the luxury of getting a single placement cover.

I know this will sound absolutely crazy but its CL9…a difficulty that new players spend months building towards just to gain access to…Rank 301-400 should be getting a single 4* cover by now to represent the true progression demands of this game.

3) Continued Focus Character Balance (Gambit)

Ask most people on Line and they’ll probably agree that 5* tier right now would feel extremely well balanced if only Gambit weren’t a part of the meta.

I both recognize and applaud the devs in their quick actions taken against Gambit. While this genuinely did weaken the character what it failed to do was actually balance the game at all. Gambit is still far and away the dominant figure in PvP in a BAD way. He’s so good that he limits your options.

Compare this to when Thanos/Panther, Bolt/Widow or OML/Phoenix were everywhere. Yes, those metas had front facing characters that were constantly the team you fought against but in those cases players fighting against them had TONS of options to win. The 3 above teams have something in common…they weren’t quick and consistent in how quickly they take down your team and such they allowed plenty of counterplay.

Gambit does not do this even after his nerf. Things are ‘better’, sure, but they aren’t good. I have a wide variety of 5’s at my disposal but no Gambit yet. Despite this the ONLY pvp where I’ve felt comfortable has been when Captain Marvel was boosted. Suddenly I can take on Gambit teams (except Gambit/Bolt teams) and have a win rate relatively close to those of the old 5* duos above.

4) Continued Focus on Buffs!

Gratz on a successful 2017 when it comes to character buffing. Keep this up. 5* players are eagerly awaiting some MUCH needed buffs to Doc Ock and Bruce Banner. Those are the 5* tier stand outs though…other 5’s that could use balance tweaks are Black Suit Spidey, Iron Man, Star Lord, and by the looks of it Archangel (but time will confirm if that’s actually true).

5) PvE: Recognize that this mode is all about SPEED and build around this.

This idea might not be realistic from a programing standpoint but if it could be done then it would vastly help PvE while making it the exact same experience players have now.

Here’s what you do:

  • Drop All Node timers from PvE
  • Make All Nodes worth the same FIXED points each clear.
  • When a node is cleared 6 times its points are reduced to 0. No exceptions.
  • Placement is determined by points.
  • Ties (and there will be TONS of them) are determined by speed.
  • Change Placement boards to show the Points followed by game play time taken. Timers start when a match begins and stop when the victory banner appears. This allows players to play WHENEVER THEY WANT within the 24 hour sub rather than strictly at the start and end.

Example Placement:
(player name) Score: 114,000 Clear Time: 00 Hours 26 Minutes 43 Seconds
(player name) Score: 114,000 Clear Time: 00 Hours 26 Minutes 49 Seconds
(player name) Score: 114,000 Clear Time: 00 Hours 28 Minutes 55 Seconds
(player name) Score: 114,000 Clear Time: 00 Hours 29 Minutes 00 Seconds

6) PvP: Win System return inspired by the Pro’s of the Point System

This is very much a PERSONAL recommendation and I’m sure will be the least agreed upon change since opinions on PvP vary widely. I’m also trying to suggest something that I know for a fact D3 could do because it doesn’t create massive coding changes like suggestion (5) above might.

  • All Progression Points in the Point System are carried over to Win System including CP progression
  • Win Grinding is reduced by making final Progression only 25 wins.
  • Placement rewards are improved all around (as per point (1) in this post) but added incentive is added via CP for top 10 placement relative to other spots. This encourages players to remain COMPETITIVE.
  • (Bonus suggestion): Open up MMR selection range a bit more.

Essentially we go back to win system but make it less strict so that it better caters to more player types while also making it a competitive mode of play for those seeking that kind of challenge.

12
  1. 5*s are opening up.
  2. 5* dilution is rapidly becoming a problem.
  3. 5* came out 2 years after launch, it’s been a little over 2 years since 5s launched (I was suspecting we’d see a 6 launch on the 4 year anniversary).

The biggest reason is the 5* availability opening up. This game only stays alive by maintaining a treadmill of getting the next thing. If 5* become attainable enough that significant portions of the game are easily attaining them it lessens the push to spend to get the hard to get. If they are opening up 5*s it’s likely because they want to get more players than before into that tier before a new ultra rare tier comes out.

You can call it pessimism, I call it optimism :-p

13

I like all of the OP hopes. Do I think we will get a single one of them? No, nope, nyet, nien, non-non, and lolz.

Cheating is totally acceptable, we’ve begged for more communication only to get the same level of responsiveness/engagement. There are bugs that are a year old with no sign of fixes. They continually ignore new ones that seem to pop up over and over again. CS isn’t going to budge on non-latest cover swaps, and tapping will continue to be the standard for competitive pve.

it will be another year of the same.

14

Some viable change to PVP progression rewards that makes both the Points-Based folks and the Wins-Based folks happy.

Some change to PVE that reduces the amount of time needing to be spent on it. Fewer nodes or fewer clears required. Also, some kind of change to the timeframe of it all so you don’t “need” to play at certain times of day to place well. I dunno, something.

15

Here is the saddest commentary I can make. The OP could have a date of December 2016 or December 2015 or December 2014 and every single thing in it would still be true.
Every issue has been a consistent problem from the beginning.
I only see them doing exactly what they have in the past…nothing

16

5s aren’t opening up that much tho. The draw rates haven’t changed (have they?), the single purchase hasn’t lowered (except for H4H), and the 6 covers from 4 champs require a max champed 4, which is still miles away for most.
I see it as a response to the essential 5* node. And they probably wanted people to actually use their 5s. 5s are useless without covers and levels, despite how they were originally pitched. I just don’t think a 6* tier would work

True, because the OP is asking them to change how they operate, not for them to do actionable things. They’ve done a bunch of stuff this year, but I agree with you on the OPs hopes, I don’t see them changing.

17

I expect we’ll see a 6* before they give 5* Banner a much-needed buff.

18

@Colognoisseur it is funny while writing this last night, you were one of the people I had in mind with a lot of your comments and forward thinking. It is truly a shame that none of this will happen but all has been asked for time and time again.

19

You have been fighting the good fight the last few months; which I admire.
They finally wore me down to a state of frustrated apathy.
Maybe you will have more success.

20

speed up pve by having a ‘replay node’ button after you beat it. restarts the node with the same characters in the state they finished the battle in. or have the node selectable as a wave option.

half of this game is cycling through reward screens, sub/event screens, character select screens, etc. you could save a tonne of time doing this. they started with some quality of life changes recently. this would be another step in the right direction.