In my opinion, the benefit of spending actual money on the game is too low. Too much is required for too little payout.
However, that’s also a really good thing. It takes away the option of an easy “pay to win” and keeps the game reasonably playable for people who don’t want to spend copious amounts of money.
So just out of curiosity, how much would you say you spend on MPQ?
Before you go on you must know that this game is definitely free to play AND it’s definitely pay to win. It’s too easy to do well by just pulling out your credit card or a little pc cheat sauce. It’s fun when you realize it’s just bejeweled with Marvel characters and ignore the other crap. But you can also do really well without spending a single cent. However the servers aren’t free so someone has to pay to keep it going for better or for worse.
that’s why I said it’s an "easy ‘pay to win’ "
Dropping 100$ to unlock 40 covers is kind of ridic.
I have spend 20€ only in roster slots. And I may spend more 10 or 20 in the near future.
If you’re getting 40 covers out of it, then it’s 2* covers, in which case you are very correct, that is quite ridiculous.
Most people would advise heavily against paying to upgrade 2* covers with HP, and even more heavily against buying cover packs.
If you are leveling up 3* characters, you can get 16 covers leveled with $100. Which also seems insane. However, if you buy a couple of key covers that help you advance your pvp playing, use some HP for roster slots, some for shielding in a beneficial manner, then your $100 can go a lot farther. Use it to help you win new covers, not buy them. That’s generally viewed as the way to go.
I keep hearing that this game is “pay to win”. If that is the case, then just how much $$$ does one have to pay to finsh top 2 or 3 in every event?
I spend more on this game each month than I do on my rent and car payment put together. ( no, that is not an exaggeration, that is 100% fact, and yes I do have more dollars than sense 
). Yet I usually only hit top 25.
So I am wondering something similar. Just how much does it cost to come out on top everytime, in every event. I could of course just max all my heros, but like the OP said, that’s just too easy. Where’s the challenge? I have every characther so far, and I use them all. I dont just pick 3 or 4 really good ones and use them over and over all the time. I use a combo like high level Patch or Hulk to take the damage and then use that one with two low level 1* characters just because I like to use their power. Or I have one Steve Rogers leveled at over 100 and a second one only at 50. I even enjoy using Daredevil. 
Yes, I said Daredevil. Most people don’t like him because you can’t control where traps go or they get disarmed too easily. And that’s correct. DD is very situational. So the key is to “control the situation”. You know, like if for example there was a character that could move tiles to different places.. places where you want them go so the AI will use them,… I better stop there, I am too close to giving away what should be obvious. Some characters aren’t very good by them selves, but matched with certian others they work splendidly. Like MN Mags and C Storm.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, spend to win. I spend a lot not just to win, (of course winning is nice), but to enjoy the game better. The more characters I have, the more choices I have. Having high level hero is great, but in low level fights it is just too easy to win sometimes. So having a lower level version of the same character to use for lower level enemies is what I try for. And if that means I have to spend money to have fun, then oh well. I’ve been spending $100 a week on games for over 20 years, I ain’t stopping now.
TL, DR,… I spend money for the entertaint value, ( which is different for everyone), I get from this game, not just to win, which is nice. But winning isn’t everything.
And to those of you that read this and say I am a fool for spending so much, well you may be right. But my cash keeps the game free for others, so you are welcome. 
$55 thus far. I think.
Bought in $5 incriments early on for roster spots (before I knew what I was getting into). Then dropped two $20s (one during the recent sale), again, for roster spots. Shielding I think pays for itself, at some point I should probably track that for sure.
I don’t mind the nominal investment, I’m up to something like 450-500 hours on this game. The Final Fantasy series (really the only other games I play) is $60 each, and I only get maybe 80-100 hours out of each one.
“Pay to win” is a concept in F2P games that doesn’t necessarily equate to “winning is everything.” It doesn’t say anything about WHY any individual chooses to spend $ on the game. All it means is if you want to win, you must spend $. In the case of MPQ, if you want to win PvP events consistently, you must spend $. Thus, MPQ PvP is P2W. Your definition if winning does not include placing top1-2 in events, and that’s fine. But that doesn’t change the facts.
The right price should be $10-20 per month (like World of Warcraft because there are servers to maintain - well, servers that work, ok 
), and then, I would think $40-60 as a one time game’s fee (like the box you are buying for WoW), and twice a year expansions with new characters or something : $20.
But the game should be as cool as WoW…
There is no comparison for the time being.
When there are 60-70 characters, they will have to change the way how you can get the first 1* covers and some of the crappy 2*. Like a one time pack. Guys could concentrate on the 3* and best 2* then. Which should keep them busy for awhile.
It takes 6 million ISO now for a complete roster, and… 547 covers.
I’ve made the decision to every so often dump $20 into the game - so far I’ve spent $50 (did that $20 dump twice with some early $5 expenditures.) If I was just using the HP for shields I probably could play indefinitely - I generally only shield once, maybe twice during any particular PVP. I’m also pretty happy with my Roster, and will only be expanding it very slowly. However, every few days or so I buy a “Heroic or Better” token at the Daily Deal - I really like opening the tokens and the chance of getting a 3* is exciting. That, and I only have a very small chance of discarding said 3*.
The Cover Packs are very poorly structured, I think, for spending money on. If you compare anything to getting the “Daily Deal” for the “Heroic or Better” packs, it’s not worth it - sure your chances of getting a 3* is slightly higher for the PVP and PVE packs, but only by 2-3%. This is outweighed by the fact that they cost twice as much. The ten packs are much, much worse - they cost 28 or 38 times as much. If you’re willing to wait every 24 hours, I think the “Heroic or Better” covers are the way to go, if you feel you need a bit of a boost in how fast you’re gathering 3* covers.
None. I’ve spent no money on this game. I’m a cheap freeloader riding entirely on the spending of those players who are really driven to be in 1st.
I am doubtful someone starting now can entirely avoid spending if they want to finish well - because there are so many 3*s now you probably will need to spend a bit on roster spots if nothing else. That said, once you have a decent roster and can get in an alliance that is in the top 100, you can finish top 5 in pretty much every PVP without spending - just shielding with earned HP - scoring anywhere from 1000-1200 with one or two shields. To get 1st in the current game without spending, you would need to have a bit of luck - a PVP where you have a good team using the featured hero, and a bracket that doesn’t include someone who is going to spend on shields to break into the higher point ranges.
For a longer view of where you can get with no spending - Season 1 I decided to push pretty hard to see where I could end up and got 2nd in my bracket (couldn’t keep up with Nemek, but ahead of Colognoisseur). Season 2 I didn’t push as hard, and finished just outside the top 10. Last season, I decided to not bother shielding at all for 3 or 4 events and joined early in an ugly bracket - dropped back to somewhere in the 40s. Regular spending might be needed to finish at the very top, but it’s not needed to win just about every other reward in the game.
I think I’ve spent somewhere around $75 on this game total in the five months and change that I’ve been playing, none recently. As others have said, I too dropped most of that early on, say $50 of it, buying roster spaces and the occasional deal of the day token back when they weren’t complete junk. Somewhere in there I dropped the other $25ish to buy a couple green covers for the Punisher, because I really felt like I needed a boost to get over that 3* transition hump.
The last time I spent so much as a dime on this game was probably about three months ago, and to me that shows how intrinsically flawed their monetization strategy is. This game provides established players almost nothing of value to buy. I used to play MMOs a lot. I was prepared to pay $15 a month for the privilege to play and did so happily. When City of Heroes (RIP) went free to play, I continued to support it. I bought some premium time and some a la carte powers because they were cool, reasonably priced, and again I was happy to support their efforts with some of my money.
So what can an established player buy in MPQ? Assuming you’ve got an established roster, tokens are a very bad value. You’re better off buying individual covers. But if you’re at the point where you only need a few covers you’re also probably making enough HP to be able to afford a cover here and there to top off a character, so no reason to spend actual money on that either. Likewise the occasional roster spot for a new character, your game earnings easily pay for that as well. Someone might drop some money to buy slots for a new alliance, but that’s a one time cost. Not sustainable income for a game. The only other things to spend money on are lots of shields and boosts, but if the prizes are Iso, HP and covers that you can also buy there isn’t much point to that either unless you’re part of the high score club, which personally doesn’t appeal.
The TL;DR version is that the problem here is that the powers-that-be don’t really seem to want my money. At least not enough to work for it. They seem much happier to mess with the game in various ways to try and squeeze money out of these other avenues, mostly from new players, none of which are of interest to someone in my position, rather than add anything to the game that vets might actually want to spend money on.
I spent $20 sometime around February to unlock roster space. I haven’t desired to spend anything since. I believe the value of this game is currently $20 or less, so I’m content. It’s a fun little match-3 game! It has the potential to be more, just like the original Puzzle Quest RPG.
I’ve been playing since early November. I spent $20-$25 early on for roster spots, and I think $5 since then, some time around March. I’d put more money into the game if they didn’t keep changing it for the worse, and if there was anything decent to spend it on - I don’t really need HP (have almost 5000 in reserve right now) which I"m hoarding for roster slots, shields, and (eventually, when the Thing comes out) I’ll put some into covers in the distant future. And ISO is still a terrible deal.
I’ve spent waaaay too much of my time on this game. 550 hours… what was/am I thinking???
No money though.
I’ve spent $45 (one $5 and 2 - $20). It’s been spent mostly on roster spots and a foolish purchasing of health packs (before I knew any better). I can usually pull at least top 100 in each PVP/PVE tourney (top 50 if I really grind). I just passed day 120 and I keep coming back.
$0 so far. I love the challenge of playing a f2p game without spending any money. Was tempted a few times to put some money in but was stopped in my tracks each time with timely ‘changes’ to the game.
This game has a bit of a pay to win but with patience and good planning, one is able to f2p and keep up with the p2w.
Some may think that all the top alliances are p2w but I would say the greater part of S.H.I.E.L.D is not p2w. I am certainly not part of that group but I highly respect my allies and appreciate their hard work.
I guess my spending has averaged $125 per week. The grand total is staggering.
About at least 4k then? Assuming you started playing in late November
It’s not very polite to calculate someone else’s money but you, like, provided means to do that and stuff :>
Edit: your earliest post on the forum dates back to Oct, 27, so I have to assume at least $4750 spent.
I don’t speak whale, Bugpop, but anyway, thank you again for us small fish being able to play
I’m primarily F2P but I’ve dropped about $50 total so far on it (steam sales come in handy) just for additional roster slots. $50 for 450 odd hours of entertainment seems like a good deal to me.