Future Anniversary Events

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Devs, admins, and everyone who will listen:

We are once again having an anniversary event. And I would like to preface this discussion with the full knowledge that rewards/events and (Hopefully) feeder announcements are not yet done so I will refrain from making my comments in regards to those items.

However, I feel the need to address the token errors, the Class of 201x PVPs, and general communication.

  1. General Communication (prior to Anniversary)

Kudos on informing us of some of the upcoming events/rewards. Credit is due where credit is earned, so good job. However, what is lackluster is the lack of communication for issues and questions that have arisen during the Anniversary events. I know that Anniversary also overlaps NYCC. My suggestion is that either Anniversary events be moved ahead or pushed back a week. If the events don’t happen precisely on the exact Anniversary dates, I’m sure we’d all be happy with that as long as we actually have dev engagement when things go sideways. The community has always responded positively with greater communication, even if we aren’t 100% happy with the contents of that communication. Using NYCC to promote Anniversary events could actually increase excitement!

1a. Having someone on-hand for the Expired Tokens that were handed out is an example here. And having a Galactus vault was kind of silly. All event rewards gave Anniversary tokens so that vault was entirely Pay to Play.

1b. Anniversary vaults should have had way more 4s now that we have 4 limited 4* characters. It looks like the standard anniversary vault had their Devil Dino contents stripped away and replaced with Howard and Taskmaster covers (with SpiderHam being entirely skipped). There used to be a veritable smorgasbord of Dino covers. Maybe have 3 separate smaller vaults over the Anniversary that each feature one limited character at a time now that we have so many. This will allow greater cover opportunities in those vaults and people to pick and choose which vaults to drop their HP/money on.

  1. Class of 201x PVPS

I want you guys to please look at these metrics closely. For myself, at first glance, it appears that it was a huge success because my engagement appeared to have went up by quite a lot.

Unfortunately, this was due to the nature of these PVPs. Without requiring a character, most of my MMR dictated that I saw almost exclusively Gritty/Bishop or Worthy Cap/Bishop/JJ teams. These, as discussed elsewhere and not worth going into yet again here, are not fun. My only option for prize progression was going wins-based. I went from 20 to 25 fights in a PVP to 75. This bordered on exhaustive burnout for myself.

  1. New Content:

Yay!

While only adding 8 extra nodes seems like not much, at least it was new and at least it required some different requirements on characters/fights. My only suggestion for future runs of this is to make it scale to your own personal roster. Honestly, waiting 24 hours for a node that took exactly one match to win seemed like a letdown. Or maybe make them all wave nodes. We’ve got 8 days to complete them. Up the rewards as well as the difficulty.

  1. Increased HP/CP.

This is throwing a bone to the vets that are all post-iso to increase their enjoyment and rewards. Everybody wins if this is implemented.

  1. HP Sales

This is the first year this hasn’t happened (as of this writing.) The Taskmaster bundle has HP (which is the first bundle in a while to do so), but 6 more Taskmaster covers and only 2200 HP wasn’t the traditional sale I was hoping to spend money on.

Summary:

I want to keep this positive. Any critiques above come from a place of kindness and respect. I want this game to be as good as it can be and I certainly don’t want to give any shade for new content and things that go above regular releases.

Thanks again for another year of gameplay!

2

It’s been a pretty sucky anniversary. I remember the old days when anniversary used to throw tokens at you and you could get covers for characters you can actually use. This year it’s just regular events with tokens for the anniversary vault replacing the regulars tokens where in the past they would have way more so you would get one from pvp from like the first 1-2 matches. I look at the anniversary vault and when it was just Devil Dino it was fine but I am not excited about champing Taskmaster 10 years from now. With dilution being such a disaster Howard is now the easiest 4* to get so why is he there. Is there any way to actually get Spiderham? I look at the vault being almost nothing but limited characters and the anniversary vault just became yet another vault not worth pulling from. Hopefully the tokens count towards future anniversaries so maybe if the devs ever pull their heads out of their rears and get the game back to a place where it’s actually worth doing well pretty much anything in the game again they might be useful.

3

The lack of spiderham is disappointing, especially when the only way to get his covers is a boss event that is rarely run.

4

I’ve been doing pretty well this Anniversary, but everybody’s mileage is going to vary on what’s offered so I get it if this has been a bum event for anybody. I’ve pulled 6-7 tokens in Fan Favs, and 2 of those have been 5*s (first purple for my 5trange (4/1/0) and a red for my OML (4/1/4) - neither set my world on fire, but still cool)

I’ve pulled down a good number of Devil Ds, a few Howards, and I managed to get my Taskmaster from 3/2/2 going in to the anniversary to 5/4/4 (lucked into the taco vault Taskmaster if you can believe that). I haven’t got the iso to champ him before the PVP ends, but at least I can champ him at all now.

I definitely agree that Ham is maybe the most limited 4* right now. My alliance can’t get to round 8 in the Battle at the Basilica, so I’ll probably only be able to get him from the April Fools stuff in future If I don’t want to direct-cp buy covers for him. He is also possibly the least useful limited, so I guess there’s at least that in the way of compensation.

I also agree that it’s weird to have side-vaults when all the events give out strictly anniversary vaults. I also kind of wish that the featured character PVPs gave out tokens to their stores as normal (dino, task, etc), though I am kind of wishy washy on that since there is stuff i’m after in the anniversary vault as well.

5

And requires your alliance to get to Round 8 of said boss events, and not all Alliances get to that point.

6

Or a crazy HP expensive Heroes for Hire offer for one cover that ran during that time if I remember. This was late June of this year if I remember right.
I passed on it because I thought he’d be available during this Anniversary…

7

While it is nice that they offer HfH deals, I could never justify the price for limited characters. The return isn’t worth the investment imo.

8

I mean, would it have been too much trouble to add the limited 4s to the Fan Favorites store?

9

When you think back to the first anniversary event and where players were at in progression things were very different. The double iso felt huge since so many players were in need of iso. The HP sales were amazing becuase so many players were struggling with roster slots. The token drop rate also felt huge since the vault only lasted a week. 20 player LR were a ton of fun and gave out great rewards.

i bring this up since so many players who were around for the first anniversary are in such GC a different place than today. For this anniversary I like the boss event, new daily event, and am looking forward to the new PVE.

For challenges for me personally 4* are an afterthought so only 5* are what I am chasing. Double iso is nice but I have been sitting on 8 million iso and 60k HP for a while. For future anniversaries I would like to see more mini events like best in class, Gauntlet, growth industry, Gwen Prix. With these events give out bigger and better rewards for anniversary like double or triple CP, for the gauntlet give out the newest 5* character, for the boss event give out another 5* instead of a favorites token.

it is challenging to go bigger and better than then the previous year and it is also a lot of work to modify the code for just 2 weeks. Overall the player base will appreciate it though.

10

Except they didn’t go bigger and better, they actually scaled back.

11

So far week 1 of Anniversary has been lackluster compared to other anniversary celebrations in vault offerings, fan favorite 5* characters, and lack of HP sale. Hopefully week 2 makes up for it.

Yes I recognize that this is complaining but I also recognize it is the truth :wink:

12

This is my Fourth Anniversary and it has been far the most…beige. The others all had their share of disastrous events, Hijinks and fun character releases but well this year it is just, sort of happening I guess. It even seems sort’a a like the Dev’s aren’t too fussed either judging by the lack of updates on the thread.

13

Only said it 1000x… where are the feeders?

As for the rest of the anniversary… I mean, it doesn’t feel special and surely doesn’t feel like any sort of “extra reward” to the players. Double ISO is nice.

14

I think Spider-Ham would have been more fitting than Howard for the Anniversary vault.

I agree the Galactus vault was unnecessary and redundant, but it’s probably easier to run it with no tokens since every event has a vault these days anyways. Not that it’s hard to get rid of it (release events get rid of vaults all the time), but it’s just one less thing to tinker with.

I don’t have a problem with the amount of Anniversary tokens given out, but I do agree that with three Limited characters in the vault, the number of useful 4-star covers in the vault is a little low. I’ve been around long enough that I’m happy to chase the Limited covers, but it would be cool if people in different parts of the game had the same level of excitement as I do.

I like the Class of 201X PVP events, but… I ran Thor/Okoye/Sabretooth for all of them and just mindlessly clubbed my way to 75 wins. There was some mild variety in my opponents, but it wasn’t super distinct. I’m going to remember MY team way more than the year-themed groupings.

The big thing I think Anniversary is lacking is… something too good to pass up. You can get good value from chasing Anniversary tokens, Limited characters are more available, Fan Favorites are “neat”, and we have the neat Yearbook Superlatives event, two costume bundles, a Taskmaster bundle… but nothing that you’d fight tooth and nail to earn, you know? We need stuff like that from time to time, and it feels like the only times it happens are by accident. Civil War gave out two 5* covers at the end (instead of an LT like every other boss event for completing Round 8). Places of Power had absurd rewards, but was nerfed into oblivion before Sinister 600 was run (because the devs apparently didn’t expect us to micromanage to get the best rewards), the Thanos release had Crash of the Mad Titan with an LT every day, etc. We need something absurd like that.

So, my crazy ideas for next year?

First, make Best in Class a yearly event, and run it for the duration of Anniversary. Second, turn the Class of 201X events into PVE events, and make them sub events for Best in Class. So in Best in Class you fight a 2013 team, then play a sub event with those characters boosted (and maybe some loaners, maybe even locked to characters from that year with a loaner team so everyone can participate). The nodes like “Best Smile” or “Most Likely to Succeed” just appear in the Class Of events. You could even do “Cutest Couple” multiple years or something (4Cyke and Phoenix one year, Rogue/Gambit another, etc). Each sub only needs a few nodes, you can throw in something a little more challenging, and give out Anniversary tokens and an LT for each one. Drop a new sub event every other day or so, to let the Class Of events last for the entire two-week Anniversary. Also, have Class Of tokens. Maybe just a store, but let someone spend to chase a specific year if they want.

Second, replace the Class Of PVP events with Fan Favorite PVPs. Peggy, 4* Carol, Medusa, Rocket & Groot, X-Force Wolverine/Deadpool, etc. With placement and progression, that gives you more chances to earn Fan Favorite characters (beyond the LTs)

Third, make Anniversary Tokens additive, not replacements. Galactus gives a Galactus token for Round 1. During Anniversary, instead you get an Anniversary Token. Right? Simple stuff. Next year, do both. You get the normal Galactus token you’d expect from every other boss event, AND you get an Anniversary token. Now the Galactus vault isn’t useless, and you get boatloads of tokens because you’re getting an Anniversary token for every themed Event token you earn. Watch and Learn PVP, at 300, 650, and 850 points, you get a token for Taskmaster PVP AND you get a token for the Anniversary vault. Loads of these are going to be 2-star covers anyways, so go nuts with it.

Fourth, either give us something worth chasing, like Crash of the Mad Titan and the daily LTs, or tweak the Anniversary vault to make my above suggestion stronger (so people are more inclined to chase every last LT they can get). Having variable vaults would be nice. I might have been happy to choose one that gave up my random 4-star covers for more Taskmaster or Spider-Ham. Others might be happier to pick a vault with NO Limited covers, whether they don’t value those characters, or they’re newer players who get more value from rostering/building 4-star characters and aren’t ready to give up roster spots for Limited characters yet. We’ve got a year, if there were some way to have something like a Shield Clearance Level attached to it, so you can PICK from different types of Anniversary Vaults, that could be crazy too. If by some crazy chance we could pick our own Fan Favorites (I think it should be a mix of personal and global favorites, honestly), and could populate an Anniversary vault with 4-star covers that way, it would be excellent.

Anniversary has been exactly what we’ve come to expect, and even with the good things, that’s just not quite enough. The cherry on top of an icecream sundae loses it’s appeal when you keep getting the same icecream sundae every year, ya dig?

15

The problem here for the devs (and this comment applies to another earlier post about class of X PvP) is there are 2 distinct sets of players. 5* PvP players and everyone else.

As someone who is a 4* PvP player all the Class Of PvPs were just fine. I saw plenty of teams full of just those boosted characters because boosted 3s are the same as my unboosted 4 teams (for 2013). So there was no wall of Gritshop or other usual PvP issues for me and in 2014 and beyond there were 4* boosted characters etc so I could skip one or two Gritshop or HammerCap teams I did see.

So while I understand 5* players saw these as just annoying Shield Sim, the rest of us certainly didn’t.

In the same vein, if they replaced the Class of PvP events with pure 4* PvP events from fan favorites then all the players with 3* and under rosters (and fledgling 4* rosters) are not going to be able to play at all because they will have the same complaint they have now with regular 4* PvP events where they don’t have the right characters with enough covers.

Not sure what the answer is unless/until they split PvP into 2 or more events that run concurrently and outright ban 5* characters in the lesser events.

KGB

16

I think it would be nice to have full 5*, full 4*, and full 3* PvP with no choice but to use all three characters from that tier.

17

Lots of sweet ideas here…

@JHawkInc I seriously read your entire comment :o

Your ideas about tokens gave me an idea… gwen pool event has a node that acts like a store where you can convert taco tokens into 7th anniversary vault tokens, x10, x40… BEFORE THE VAULT OPENS!? 8O
(Throwback to deadpool stockpiled token, did anyone screenshot that vault? Pulled a 2 star danvers, shoulda left that token, the vault cover was better than the pull)

Gwen gets her cut and that’s why deadpool was so betrayed in his node… “I give you tokens you beat up the people I tell you to…” (noticed he queued up several times against us in deadpool daily month prior to gwen prix, si he had it coming)

Ps pulled the 2900hp this year xD

18

You’re making quite the assumption that there will be another anniversary.

19

My biggest disappointment was that the vault went 6x dino at the cost of 3x other random 4*'s. That vault would have been awesome with 3x Dino 3x TM 3x Duck 6x random.

And LT’s instead of fan favorites, but whatever. I think I’m 1-11 on fan favorite tokens but didn’t care to put cp into them anyway. Still curious where the metric came from that OML is heavily used - new players shouldn’t have him, and old players never use him. I have no curiosity whatsoever about how often Kitty is used. Imagine that.

I guess I use OML every day - as Thanos fodder on easy PVE nodes. I’m going to start using garbage 5*'s I’d actually like to see in the future.

(Obviously ‘worst’ of anniversary is no feeders, but that goes without saying.)

20

Next year’s anniversary season should just be called October 2020.