Broken game + misplaced priorities = bankrupt enterprise

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

This game is profoundly broken. Development efforts are focused, it seems, only on sales opportunities.

It was fun to play, like, a year ago. Now, this is as close to done with this shattered, garbage game as I have ever been. It’s not worth playing because nothing works; nothing is predictable (other than freezes and assorted failures) and endless sales of new characters. It is sickening.

The “engine upgrade” is a joke. There’s no point in collecting characters if gameplay is shattered. They don’t know how to fix the game or they are commanded to do other things than fix it.

You folks better fucking fix it* or folks like me who are spenders and pretty much diehards are going away.

And there are hundreds of fixes necessary. Far more necessary than a new 2 character during anniversary. Anniversaries also honor death.

2

(Unsure why those italics showed up; please ignore. Edit didn’t work, strangely.)

3

I know I’m gonna get called a shill or whatever for this, but I do at time get genuinely confused about some of the feedback that gets sent here - since unity went live i’ve had maybe one crash and that was weeks and weeks ago, its just been pretty seamless for me. Do I have some kind of magic device that makes the game fine for me? I honestly have not has a single experience that would classify as the game being “shattered” so I have no idea if its really a majority of people who can genuinely not play the game, or a loud minority who are having a few bugs and overstating the issues?

4

By my assessment:

  1. There are a multitude of UI/visual bugs all over the place, minor to major

  2. Pretty much every menu/UI transition is MUCH MUCH slower and more laggy compare to the OG engine.
    Trying to quickly skip PVP teams lots of times? This is significantly less responsive than the OG game, to the point where it delays your input so much you are basically and “queuing it up”, as it takes almost a full second to resolve. A second may not sound like much, but in UI/navigation terms this is an eternity, especially compared to how the game used to play. It’s so bad that you think it didn’t even accept your input, so you try again or tap a different option.

  3. Some features are completely missing
    Example = When a PVE/PVP event has ended, it doesn’t show as a completed tile in the list of events anymore, so you can’t see the summary of what you did. It’s just gone. I doubt this is by design (why intentionally remove something useful that’s been in the game for a decade+?).

Issue 2 is the worst one for me. I’ve played other games with poor UI responsiveness. What makes it worse here because we HAD a version that didn’t have this problem Once in a battle it’s been fine enough for me, aside from Issue 1 occasionally doing odd things.

It will make what should be a time celebration for the anniversary lackluster because we have to deal with issues like these.

5

Again, I’m not seeing anything close to a 1 second lag when skipping pvp teams, it appears to me to be just as quick as it ever was

But do the issues you’re experiencing mean the game is now “shattered”, or broken to the point of unplayability?

6

Let’s be realistic - they are never going to stop bringing characters out, it is their entire business and they almost certainly have contractual obligations with Marvel over making some content available to keep the licence. So we really need to stop bothering with this line of argument - they will stop adding characters when the game shuts down and not before.

To add balance I have experienced both sides of the issues - on my old tablet the game crashed frequently and was unplayable but on my new tablet I have not had a single crash or freeze. The game menus are as commented on above a bit laggy as is token opening. The game retains some visual bugs such as the tile drop lag on first entering a match but thereafter is fine.

I would like to know what if anything is to be done about missing quests most specifically for Sunspot, those 750 shards are a massive thing for players to miss out on, especially after Zemo was launched without a feeder meaning it took a lot more pulls to cover him.

I expect PvP will iron itself out - we all got drunk on seed teams and lots of covers and now the party is over.

We finally have new features incoming, a new * tier, revamped SCL and the possibility that old events can be refreshed or revisited.

So yes, whilst the game has been in better shape there a lot of positives to look forward to. Sadly though it may remain the case that older devices just don’t have the RAM to play Unity which does suck.

7

100like 1,000insightful

8

You’re a fine commenter, and funny, and I usually love you. But wow, you are sounding like the shadow hound, here.

9

@Yepyep said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Let’s be realistic - they are never going to stop bringing characters out, it is their entire business and they almost certainly have contractual obligations with Marvel over making some content available to keep the licence. So we really need to stop bothering with this line of argument - they will stop adding characters when the game shuts down and not before.

To add balance I have experienced both sides of the issues - on my old tablet the game crashed frequently and was unplayable but on my new tablet I have not had a single crash or freeze. The game menus are as commented on above a bit laggy as is token opening. The game retains some visual bugs such as the tile drop lag on first entering a match but thereafter is fine.

I would like to know what if anything is to be done about missing quests most specifically for Sunspot, those 750 shards are a massive thing for players to miss out on, especially after Zemo was launched without a feeder meaning it took a lot more pulls to cover him.

I expect PvP will iron itself out - we all got drunk on seed teams and lots of covers and now the party is over.

We finally have new features incoming, a new * tier, revamped SCL and the possibility that old events can be refreshed or revisited.

So yes, whilst the game has been in better shape there a lot of positives to look forward to. Sadly though it may remain the case that older devices just don’t have the RAM to play Unity which does suck.

You’re a fine commenter, and funny, and I usually love you. But wow, you are sounding like the shadow hound, here.

Firstly thank you, those are praises indeed, deserved or not.

With the Hound thing, not so happy with that. Can I ask you why you say that? That is a pretty high level insult. If I was Hound I would have twisted your entire thread to make you into a whining bad guy and eulogized the Devs. The Unity engine has been a disaster, I don’t believe I have said otherwise.

You might not like what you see but can you deny my first paragraph isn’t true? Everything else seems to vary player experience to player experience. Is the state of the game in the best place? No absolutely not but things are getting fixed. The Devs seem to be trying.

I have chosen to believe that a lot of this has taken by surprise, I think they made a massive misjudgement in assuming players with older devices could handle Unity when it is becoming clear they can’t. That is biting them. I can’t speak to their competence with the Unity engine as I don’t have any knowledge of their programmers. I would like to believe they went into this with sufficient knowledge and skill base but things have got away from them for sure.

Sorry you didn’t like my post - if you wish I can remove it but also, sorry not accepting the Hound slander. I am not of Shadow.

10

You have 8 posts to this forum, at this writing.

How many Top 10 PvP results have you had? If you don’t have the hard-won knowledge of that game, then you might not be able to relate to my comments.

That’s definitely not meant to be offensive. But my commentary is intended to be pointed at a small group of extremely active competitors. (And if I’m wrong about your game, then please add something useful.)

Edited for: drunken Saturday night

11

If I was Hound though, it would have gone something like this:

I believe the real Hound is on Reddit if you fancy some more!

12

@DAZ0273 said:

@Yepyep said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Let’s be realistic - they are never going to stop bringing characters out, it is their entire business and they almost certainly have contractual obligations with Marvel over making some content available to keep the licence. So we really need to stop bothering with this line of argument - they will stop adding characters when the game shuts down and not before.

To add balance I have experienced both sides of the issues - on my old tablet the game crashed frequently and was unplayable but on my new tablet I have not had a single crash or freeze. The game menus are as commented on above a bit laggy as is token opening. The game retains some visual bugs such as the tile drop lag on first entering a match but thereafter is fine.

I would like to know what if anything is to be done about missing quests most specifically for Sunspot, those 750 shards are a massive thing for players to miss out on, especially after Zemo was launched without a feeder meaning it took a lot more pulls to cover him.

I expect PvP will iron itself out - we all got drunk on seed teams and lots of covers and now the party is over.

We finally have new features incoming, a new * tier, revamped SCL and the possibility that old events can be refreshed or revisited.

So yes, whilst the game has been in better shape there a lot of positives to look forward to. Sadly though it may remain the case that older devices just don’t have the RAM to play Unity which does suck.

You’re a fine commenter, and funny, and I usually love you. But wow, you are sounding like the shadow hound, here.

Firstly thank you, those are praises indeed, deserved or not.

With the Hound thing, not so happy with that. Can I ask you why you say that? That is a pretty high level insult. If I was Hound I would have twisted your entire thread to make you into a whining bad guy and eulogized the Devs. The Unity engine has been a disaster, I don’t believe I have said otherwise.

You might not like what you see but can you deny my first paragraph isn’t true? Everything else seems to vary player experience to player experience. Is the state of the game in the best place? No absolutely not but things are getting fixed. The Devs seem to be trying.

I have chosen to believe that a lot of this has taken by surprise, I think they made a massive misjudgement in assuming players with older devices could handle Unity when it is becoming clear they can’t. That is biting them. I can’t speak to their competence with the Unity engine as I don’t have any knowledge of their programmers. I would like to believe they went into this with sufficient knowledge and skill base but things have got away from them for sure.

Sorry you didn’t like my post - if you wish I can remove it but also, sorry not accepting the Hound slander. I am not of Shadow.

Well, first of all, that is a beautiful, erudite reply. As is your voice, always.

My hound reference was meant as his splash: defend and oppose. It was not an indictment of your style and rhetorical cut. I apologize for that attack (though it wasn’t one.)

But: you are defending the undefendable (not sure how to spell that: a or i?). They imposed a new engine that they do not know how to use. We have played the game for years with an engine that worked pretty well and didn’t break all that often. For no good reason other than licensing, I guess, they dropped this nonsense on us.

All your other assumptions look like propaganda to me (surprise, massive misjudgment, that paragraph). And that’s totally fine. I get your point.

Ending point: I didn’t mean to equate you with hound. Sorry about that. I just meant to say that I felt you were covering for the Broken Circle fail-asses when that cover isn’t warranted.

Is that more fair criticism of your comments?

(Definitely, I did not intend to be quite that stark with the hound relation, my friend.)

13

@DAZ0273 said:
If I was Hound though, it would have gone something like this:

DazofShadow said:

Players should manage their expectations of Unity engine. Players expect always to be able to play the game without freezing or crash and this is unrealistic. When players were getting multiple Latest Legend tokens when game was broken with Crash of the Titans they did not say thank you to the Devs but now they complain because game not working as well as they demand. Players always insult the Devs by accusing them of not playing their own game but now players can’t play the game either so now they know how Devs feel!

I believe the real Hound is on Reddit if you fancy some more!

Incredible. I’m wondering if this person is actually Steven Miller…?

14

The endless sale of characters has been going the entire 12 years I’ve been playing, if you find that sickening this probably isn’t the game for you, it’s never going to stop until the game does.

Actually, the same is true of every mobile game I’ve ever played. They keep adding characters from whatever IP the game is based on, or ones not based on a specific IP bring in all sorts of guest characters. I think I’ve seen the ninja turtles advertised in like 4 different mobile games now, and fortnite, and call of duty.

15

@Yepyep said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@Yepyep said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Let’s be realistic - they are never going to stop bringing characters out, it is their entire business and they almost certainly have contractual obligations with Marvel over making some content available to keep the licence. So we really need to stop bothering with this line of argument - they will stop adding characters when the game shuts down and not before.

To add balance I have experienced both sides of the issues - on my old tablet the game crashed frequently and was unplayable but on my new tablet I have not had a single crash or freeze. The game menus are as commented on above a bit laggy as is token opening. The game retains some visual bugs such as the tile drop lag on first entering a match but thereafter is fine.

I would like to know what if anything is to be done about missing quests most specifically for Sunspot, those 750 shards are a massive thing for players to miss out on, especially after Zemo was launched without a feeder meaning it took a lot more pulls to cover him.

I expect PvP will iron itself out - we all got drunk on seed teams and lots of covers and now the party is over.

We finally have new features incoming, a new * tier, revamped SCL and the possibility that old events can be refreshed or revisited.

So yes, whilst the game has been in better shape there a lot of positives to look forward to. Sadly though it may remain the case that older devices just don’t have the RAM to play Unity which does suck.

You’re a fine commenter, and funny, and I usually love you. But wow, you are sounding like the shadow hound, here.

Firstly thank you, those are praises indeed, deserved or not.

With the Hound thing, not so happy with that. Can I ask you why you say that? That is a pretty high level insult. If I was Hound I would have twisted your entire thread to make you into a whining bad guy and eulogized the Devs. The Unity engine has been a disaster, I don’t believe I have said otherwise.

You might not like what you see but can you deny my first paragraph isn’t true? Everything else seems to vary player experience to player experience. Is the state of the game in the best place? No absolutely not but things are getting fixed. The Devs seem to be trying.

I have chosen to believe that a lot of this has taken by surprise, I think they made a massive misjudgement in assuming players with older devices could handle Unity when it is becoming clear they can’t. That is biting them. I can’t speak to their competence with the Unity engine as I don’t have any knowledge of their programmers. I would like to believe they went into this with sufficient knowledge and skill base but things have got away from them for sure.

Sorry you didn’t like my post - if you wish I can remove it but also, sorry not accepting the Hound slander. I am not of Shadow.

Well, first of all, that is a beautiful, erudite reply. As is your voice, always.

My hound reference was meant as his splash: defend and oppose. It was not an indictment of your style and rhetorical cut. I apologize for that attack (though it wasn’t one.)

But: you are defending the undefendable (not sure how to spell that: a or i?). They imposed a new engine that they do not know how to use. We have played the game for years with an engine that worked pretty well and didn’t break all that often. For no good reason other than licensing, I guess, they dropped this nonsense on us.

All your other assumptions look like propaganda to me (surprise, massive misjudgment, that paragraph). And that’s totally fine. I get your point.

Ending point: I didn’t mean to equate you with hound. Sorry about that. I just meant to say that I felt you were covering for the Broken Circle fail-**** when that cover isn’t warranted.

Is that more fair criticism of your comments?

(Definitely, I did not intend to be quite that stark with the hound relation, my friend.)

My original first paragraph isn’t meant as a defence - I just can’t see any other way of analysing it - regardless of whether we think their priorities are wrong those priorities are just never changing whether the game is goob, bad or ugly.

And you can put my other level of optimism about upcoming things down to trying to be positive but I am truth be told not really 100% convinced.

I did say in the Anniversary announcement thread that they really need to fix the game.

I definitely don’t mean to try and disrespect any players current views of the game, criticism of the Devs is valid and it is taking far too long to fix the game and frustrations with that should not be dismissed.

It was at least a pretty good Hound impression though, eh? :wink:

16

Stopping the release of new characters would have little or no effect on bug fixes. Work on new characters will be done by members of the team who are artists or content creators. They won’t have the programming skills to work on bug fixing and likely have tools that let them add new characters without needing developers assistance.

17

@Yepyep said:

@DAZ0273 said:
If I was Hound though, it would have gone something like this:

DazofShadow said:

Players should manage their expectations of Unity engine. Players expect always to be able to play the game without freezing or crash and this is unrealistic. When players were getting multiple Latest Legend tokens when game was broken with Crash of the Titans they did not say thank you to the Devs but now they complain because game not working as well as they demand. Players always insult the Devs by accusing them of not playing their own game but now players can’t play the game either so now they know how Devs feel!

I believe the real Hound is on Reddit if you fancy some more!

Incredible. I’m wondering if this person is actually Steven Miller…?

On Reddit, Hound is ReturnalShadow.

Daz tried but he wasn’t insulting enough to players to actually be a Hound post.

I agree the game bugs are frustrating and the UI remains somewhat laggy although it might be a little better. In general I assume most people still playing find it mostly ok to play though.

The whole Unity thing has yet to present a clear QOL benefit; every player benefit has basically seemed somewhat accidental at best. Maybe making harder content and stronger characters will feel better than we think but I have lost so much confidence in the devs between the abandonment of comms while barely improving things.

It is no surprise the revenue has fallen through the floor. So in a way, anyone who feels frustrated may soon be relieved of that, ha ha.

Expecting a significant change from “many bugs persist and are treated as low priority as the devs try as hard as possible to create incentives to spend” is, no offense, foolish and ignores what the devs have shown us through their actions.

I am not trying to specifically call anyone out but the OP basically saying “fix this or I quit” is a common sentiment we see. The devs are not complete morons or anything. They are mostly aware of the bugs, especially once they are in game for like a week and a bunch of people have reported them. They are just extremely limited in ability to address them. Is it due to ability? Time? Both? Impossible to truly assess. It’s even possible some personnel are doing an intentionally bad job. We cannot know.

The only thing each individual player can do is to decide how much time and money to give the product that is currently being sold to them. If it’s not enjoyable then your options are clear; play through it or quit. This is just a fact, not a threat or whatever or a veiled insult.

The whole live service model is extremely weird in a way. They create lots of reasons to keep playing which gives them lots of leeway after locking in players to not bother to fix issues that a new game might need to fix. We feel compelled to keep engaging with it to maintain our “progress” which people in an office in Italy can decide at a whim to erase through shutdown. In a way it’s like being a comic collector who is determined to have a full run of a series even when the best issues to you were the ones you read when you were 15, but any day now it’ll get good again so you keep buying it.

18

Respectfully, if Yepyep and everybody else had the same experience as you then they’d be as happy as you.

Sadly, that hasn’t been the case.

Of the close to 100 players I know and talk to regularly, all have had an experience like Yepyep’s rather than like yours.

In short, just because everything is okay with you that doesn’t mean that everything is okay for everyone.

19

So quit. They’re not listening. They don’t care. You have a choice, what are you going to do about it?

20

My experience is much like The Viceroy Returns. Every menu (claiming rewards, skipping teams, starting battles, selecting characters, swapping supports etc) is MUCH slower. 1-2 seconds to do most of them which means if I want to swap a character and a couple of supports I’m looking at 20 seconds or more. That drags down speed of play enormously and that’s before the speed of the gem matches / board etc.

What’s funny is that the animation for the daily reward (where the green package drops) is as smooth as it ever was. So it’s absolutely something else that’s causing it. Whether its contacting the server to do all this now (where it wasn’t before) or whether it’s building these menus and things from scratch every time (instead of caching) I don’t know. But it’s just an awful experience that isn’t getting a whole lot better.

I’m lucky I don’t see the freezes. I suspect that it’s because I live in the US that has lots of servers and I bet YepYep lives some place with much fewer servers and now that the game seems to have to go to the server for literally everything it’s causing freezes.

KGB