Affiliations

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

What do you do when your Alliance finishes a boss event 2 days early?

I decided to catalog all the Affiliations for every character in the game. Why? See sentence 1 above. But in doing so, I found some interesting observations and thought I’d share. There is a chance I goofed in typing them all in, and I’m not claiming to have so much fan lore as to know which characters are rightfully associated with which, but I did find some things I found of note, listed below followed by a full count. Near as I can tell, Affiliations only matter for who is eligible to equip which Supports (and I KNOW how much everyone LOOOOOVES supports) and certain events, so while the below may be useless, I hope it is at least interesting. Now, on to the findings!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nG6Giu-3TV-tapdxUI3izeX99CMQpKpmsJevEvYomL0/edit?usp=sharing

Bear in mind most (not all) characters have multiple Affiliations. Also, I did not exclude multiple versions of the same character. So, for example, the count for Team Cap includes all 4 versions of Captain America (Infinity War, First Avenger, Super-Soldier, and Steve Rogers).

Finding 1: People love Team Cap way more than Team Iron Man. Poor Tony, he’s only got slightly more than half the friends Steve has.

Finding 2: Tony didn’t mind mixed company. You won’t find any Villains on Team Cap, but you will find 4 on Team Iron Man (Ragnarok, Sentry, Red Hulk, and Ares). I mean, I know the guy lives a questionable lifestyle, but geez.

Finding 3: We’ve still got way more Heroes than Villains (and it’s not even close: 137-31). I thought the whole point of being a hero was being an underdog? Why is there any super crime at all?

Finding 4: Some of the X-Men were moonlighting. Storm on Team Cap, Beast and 2* Wolverine on the Avengers.

Finding 5: They should be called the Sinister Seven. The one not accounted for in the recent boss event was Kraven. (The total count below shows 8 because there are 2 versions of Doctor Octopus, one 5* and one 3*)

Finding 6: The Champions (Kamala Khan, Totally Awesome Hulk, Nova, and Miles Morales) and The Young Avengers (America Chavez, Wiccan, and Kate Bishop) are awfully lonely and could use some more friends. Maybe fodder for new toons?

Anyway, here is the whole count. I hope this was at least mildly amusing, mildly entertaining, mildly interesting, or perhaps the trifecta of all.

After reading this, what other Affiliations would you like to see in the game?

What other ways would you like to see Affiliations used?

Count Affiliation

138 Heroes

58 Team Cap

53 Avengers

33 Team Iron Man

31 Villains

29 X-Men

10 Dark Avengers

10 Spider-Verse

9 Guardians of the Galaxy

8 Sinister Six

7 Defenders

6 Fantastic Four

6 S.H.I.E.L.D.

5 Inhumans

4 Champions

3 Young Avengers

2

Part 2: Differences among character variants

Black Widow (5 versions):
4* and 5* are Team Cap, 1*, 2*, and 3* are Team Iron Man
2* is not an Avenger, the others are

Bullseye (2 versions):
2* is a Dark Avenger, 3* is not

Captain America (4 versions):
2* and 3* are S.H.I.E.L.D., the 5* variants are not

Doctor Strange (2 versions):
5* is an Avenger, 3* is not

Gamora (2 versions):
3* is Team Cap, 4* is not

Ghost Rider (2 versions):
4* is Team Cap, 5* is not

Magneto (2 versions):
2* is a Hero, 3* is a Villain
2* is an X-Men, 3* is not

Rocket & Groot (2 versions):
3* is Team Cap, 4* is not

Spider-Man (6 versions):
3* and 4* are Avengers, the others are not
2* is Fantastic Four, the others are not

Star-Lord (3 versions):
3* and 4* are Team Cap, 5* is not

The Hulk (4 versions):
4* Totally Awesome is not an Avenger, the others are
3* and 4* Totally Awesome are Team Iron Man, the others are not
4* Totally Awesome is a Champion, the others are not

Thor (4 versions):
4* is Team Cap, the others are not

Venom (3 versions):
4* Agent Venom is a Hero, the others are Villains
1* Venom is a Dark Avenger, the others are not
4* Agent Venom is Spider-Verse, the others are not
4* Eddie Brock is Sinister Six, the others are not

Wasp (2 versions):
4* is Team Cap and Avengers, 5* is neither

Wolverine (4 versions):
2* is an Avenger, the others are not

3

After civil war captain america was hunted by shield that’s why he doesnt have the affiliation

4

All the inconsistencies reflect different versions of the character. Ex: 5range is the Comic version, 3trange is the MCU version. Comic version is an Avenger.

It would take a while to go through your entire list, but it does make sense in terms of which period the version is from and in a lot of cases, whether they are MCU or not.

One of the few things you can change about comics characters is who they hang out with. For years Spidey was very definitely not an Avenger and did his own thing. Then one day, he was an Avenger.

5

@helix72, if it is easy would you mind posting these data somewhere for general use? It would be helpful to someone like me that doesn’t have a strong comics background. I frequently haven’t the slightest idea what affiliation(s) a character has and the implications are sometimes important (like Grocket and the GotG team, obviously, I have no idea if Arch/Angel is hero or villain (seems like both…?), etc.).

Anyway, if yes – thanks in advance. If no – totally understand. Cheers!

6

This makes total sense to me. All six of the Spider-Man are different iterations of the character. Bag-Man Spider-Man is from Fantastic Four era only. 1 star and 5 star Spideys are not the Avengers team. One is Black Symbiote and the other is training wheels Peter Parker. 3 and 4 star are Avengers (3-star being the older Parker and 4-star being Iron Spider). This isn’t a discrepancy. They are all affiliated appropriately.

7

Venom (3 versions):
4* Agent Venom is a Hero, the others are Villains
1* Venom is a Dark Avenger, the others are not
4* Agent Venom is Spider-Verse, the others are not
4* Eddie Brock is Sinister Six, the others are not

Likewise here. Flash Thompson is heroic, the rest are not. Brock and Gargan were both members of the Sinister Six.

8

All of the ‘inconsistencies’ that you’ve given make sense to me; they seem consistent with each individual era or version of the character.

9

In many of those cases they’re actually different people, just using the same code name for whatever reason. Wasp, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Thor, and Venom all fall in this category.

10

They need to have traditional villains like Nebula and Emma Frost be listed as villains. I think they should have Deadpool be both listed as hero and villain first because its Deadpool so why not and secondly he was first introduced as a villain in comics.

11

Tiny nitpick, Black Symbiote Spider-Man is not in the game. 5* Spidey is “Back in Black”, which is a black cloth suit he wears well after losing the symbiote (20 years later in real life time). It’s a suit he uses for stealth and to intimidate enemies, but it’s a “normal” suit, not the symbiote. Also, Kraven’s comic cover in the game pictures him holding this suit.

12
13

See if this works:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nG6Giu-3TV-tapdxUI3izeX99CMQpKpmsJevEvYomL0/edit?usp=sharing

14

Yes! That works. Thank you, wow… A sort by affiliation (by me) and it’s done. Wish I had a way to send you an LT (without losing one lol) because I would if I could.

15

@helix72 Really awesome stuff! Just a suggestion but it might make more sense to title Part 2: “Differences among character variants” or something of the like since the current “Character inconsistencies” seems to be causing confusion or disagreement. Just a thought!

But looking forward to any further insights your research yields.

As for other affiliations I would love to see in-game:

X-Force: Deadpool, Wolverine, Psylocke, Archangel with future additions: Fantomex, Cable, and Domino
The Defenders: Dr. Strange, Hulk, Silver Surfer with future addition: Namor
The Brotherhood of Mutants: Magneto, Mystique, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch with future additions: Blob, Toad, Sabertooth

I would love to see affiliations be better incorporated into the game by giving boosts or added bonuses and effects like AP cost reduction when running a full X-Men team, receive less damage when running an Avengers team with Cap, or more damage a la 4* Grocket running with other GotG.

16

Yes, This!
A Synergy Bonus.

17

@fight4thedream thanks, great suggestion. It was not my intent to suggest there was something wrong with having different affiliations, as I am sure most Marvel characters over time have gone through many different affiliations. Change made, hopefully that clears the confusion. Also realized I goofed on GotG, there are 9, not 8. Edit made. If anyone finds any other typos, please do let me know. I keep feeling like one day this will matter…

And I’ll accept any gifts anyone wants to send. Since you can’t currently send tokens, you can simply join the alliance I’m in, buy 4 Starks to gift me 28 CP, and then I can buy the LT myself! Plus you’ll have a bunch of Hero Points and 28 CP of your own.

Seriously though, happy someone other than me finds this interesting. Makes the game fun.

18

Thanks!
interesting to see how many 5* team Cap has vs team IM

19

Edit–updated both the above totals and the file for Dazzler (Heroes and X-Men affiliations)

20

Team Iron Man is a it of a bummer when Civil War comes around. Having to cobble together a team of your boosted that dont get in each others way is actually not as easy. It’s like everyone is at Caps party instead. Wish they’d introduce more team IM characters from now on…