Idea: "Environmental zones: the final frontier of PvP?"

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
1

I think one of the major issues of PvP that gets little attention is the lack of variety in terms of environment. Since basically every PvP match is a standard, generic board it makes it easier for certain types of teams to dominate PvP thoroughly by favoring high offensive and offensive boost skillsets over other abilities.

I believe that if Environmental zones were employed, there would be an expansion of the PvP meta. But I suppose it would help if I define what an Environmental zone is.

What is an Environmental zone?
An Environmental zone is a node that provides various status boosts, special tiles, and/or environmental tiles that make it distinct from the generic standard board. A simple example would be:

Winter Tundra

  • Board composition: Higher drop rate of blue AP tiles, lower drop rate of green AP tiles
  • Special tiles: Winter Freeze tiles, 1 turn blue CD tiles that stun target for 3 turns.
  • Ideal team: Bring a team with one or two unstunnable characters (Silver Surfer, Moon Knight, Apoc + Mutant, etc)

Ideally, there would be different types of Environmental zones:

Nature zones: zones that have higher drop rates of certain colors, lower drop rates of others plus potential special tiles that have specific effects (stun, AP drain, burst healing, etc)

Affiliation zones: zones that grant boosts and status effects based on character affiliation

Special tile zones: zones that begin the match with a certain amount of special tiles

An example of an affiliation zone:

Asgard: Asgardian characters have double health, double match damage and start off with 3 AP in their strongest color. For every Asgardian on your team, take 10% less damage.

An example of Special tile zone:

Hell’s Kitchen: The board starts with 10 friendly strike tiles and 10 enemy attack tiles.

How should Environmental zones be used?
Considering standard PvP events have three nodes, I think ideally the set up should be:

Top node: Normal node (standard generic). For players who prefer to the standard PvP format.

Right node: Fixed Special Environmental zone, ideally should be connected to the featured character either in terms of lore (think Daredevil for Hell’s Kitchen) or skillset (think Winter Tundra for characters that have cannot be stunned passive)

Left node: Random Special Environmental zone. For players that wish to try out different teams during the event.

Perhaps it would be best to try out such a system in the LRs or maybe in SIM first but I think it would help expand the meta more organically than the current weekly character boost system and would give more meaning to the affiliation system that is currently being developed.

2

After the last week, you think they have the capacity to implement this, like, ever?
I’d rather not let them break PVP like they broke PVE.

3

Why is is that ninja’s only ever seem to attack Hell’s Kitchen when they go to New York? Did they object to them changing the name to Clinton a while back? Get over it Gorgon!

Anyway - this is a cool idea (maybe with some tweaks) but like Bowgentle I fear about experimentation with the code to this extent. Especially if we got a “Kang Zone”…crikey, we would lose on round 1 as our team got sent away with the way things are going!

4

I like the idea.
The environmental zones would work like another kind of godboost to another type of characters so there could be more diversity.
In the past I suggested pvp maps. This way, adding blocked tiles doing something the pvp experience would change.
Environmental tiles could be designed into pvp maps and then rng would fill of regular tiles the board, and then it’s a matter of just rotating the pvp maps when environmental pvps took place.

Now there are 2 options: link the godboost to a favorable environmental map, or not at all.
On the first case the character with the best favorable toolkit would be the only one to be used by players on that map. Still on the next map in the week that would change.
On the second case it would be interesting to see if non godboosted characters get more use than the weekly featured.

Now that probably the rock-paper system should work again, it would be a good time to implement something like this.

5

Problems I can see with this:

1.) Board interactions. Somebody like Mighty Thor is gonna have to have the board coded so she doesn’t instantly render things pointless by destroying environmental or special tiles. Scary…Chasm levels of disaster feel ominously possible in making such changes with unintended character breaking results.
2.) Whereas any character can get a boosted week, limited character affiliation zones mean there will be an even greater level of tiers in character usefulness. The idea as presented is cool but I fear it would have to be cheesed into things like “Hero zones” and “Runaway zones” that don’t follow the concept but are a cheap expansion to keep it running regularly and expand who is included. Hells Kitchen isn’t much use if Morbius matches some specials straight away for example.
3.) I don’t like the idea of the dilution of the 3 nodes available to play myself. If anything the two extra zones/nodes would need to be added as optional alternatives. Again…sounds like a messy job given the new Devs are struggling so much with even new Boss events having scaling nodes and Vaults with actual names.

I do like the idea though, so don’t take any of the above as criticism or disparaging. I could also be wrong about how you can code the board to stop MT cheesing things but have some doubts because of, uhm, reasons.

6

Since you’re a moderator, you know should post ideas in the suggestions and feedback forum where it can properly be ignored by everyone.

7

That is still there? Newsflash!

8

Yeah, but doing this way it can properly be discussed by people who actually like to contribute and suggest a bit more.
(Yeah I know there are people with delicate thumbs who hate so much to casually click on posts).

9

I think it’s s great idea. When I opened it up, I was thinking different shaped boards or a column that does triple damage when matched. But there are loads of different suggestions in the OP which I think would add to the game and increase creativity of teams.

10

Maybe we could start small. Perhaps with just special tiles instead of whole zones. Maybe they could be called, environmental tiles?

11

I also don’t want new backgrounds if they’re designed by the guy who made the feeder slide.

12

Nor the person who designed that store front picture that had Kingpin and Abigail Brand in it not that long ago. Well part of Abigail Brand.

13

Mod note: Moved to suggestions and feedback

14

I take your point but I suppose it would be helpful to clarify that the distinction of what goes in Suggestions and Feedback and what is permitted to be posted in the General Forum has to do with the question of intended audience. Simply put, a thread that’s primary audience is the dev team goes to Suggestion and Feedback while a thread that seeks discussion or commiseration from forum peers is permitted to be posted in the General Forum.

I suppose mine was a bit of both so either forum works.

15

@fight4thedream said:

@DeNappa said:
Since you’re a moderator, you know should post ideas in the suggestions and feedback forum where it can properly be ignored by everyone.

I take your point but I suppose it would be helpful to clarify that the distinction of what goes in Suggestions and Feedback and what is permitted to be posted in the General Forum has to do with the question of intended audience. Simply put, a thread that’s primary audience is the dev team goes to Suggestion and Feedback while a thread that seeks discussion or commiseration from forum peers is permitted to be posted in the General Forum.

I suppose mine was a bit of both so either forum works.

I think he might have been joking to an extent but hey, I had forgot this place existed so a chance to have a look around!

16

Where you see problems, I see opportunities my friend:

  1. Not every environmental zone will have special tiles (consider Affiliation zones). Additionally, special tiles that punish destruction can also be developed to hinder characters like Mighty Thor. For example, a Minefield zone that have bomb tiles that only go off when matched or destroyed or a Swamp zone that has quicksand CD tiles that start off at 12 and any character that matches or destroys such tiles will be stunned for the number of turns left on the CD. The goal is to make various environments where different types of skills are ideal.

  2. Oh there certainly will be some cheese! But also some veggies, fruits and soups, too! I think it’s perfectly cool that Morbius would be a great option for Hell’s Kitchen but not so great in Asgard. What I would really like to see are Environmental zones that highlight the skillset of the feature character or encourage the use of characters who are teammates. The goal is to help diversify viable styles of play and to add value to certain non-offensive skill types. Silver Surfer and 5* MoonKnight would thrive in a Swamp fight since they cannot be stunned while Mighty Thor and Chasm teams wouldn’t have such an easy-go.

  3. While I understand the initial reluctance and am not opposed to making normal PvP events with 5 nodes (3 normal and 2 environmental) to appease those who don’t like the change, I would first like players to try it with the proposed 3 to get a feel for it and provide feedback.

Finally, while I acknowledge the new Dev team has been struggling a bit with bugs as of late, I still hope they are not afraid to take on new projects to make the game more fun.

17

I appreciate the vote of confidence! I honestly don’t know how it would all workout with godboosted characters but it is something that definitely would need to be taken into consideration and analyzed.

18

I think those are some great ideas as well! I am particularly curious as to how different shaped boards would work out. What kind of shapes did you have in mind and how would matching interactions go?

19

@fight4thedream said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Problems I can see with this:

1.) Board interactions. Somebody like Mighty Thor is gonna have to have the board coded so she doesn’t instantly render things pointless by destroying environmental or special tiles. Scary…Chasm levels of disaster feel ominously possible in making such changes with unintended character breaking results.
2.) Whereas any character can get a boosted week, limited character affiliation zones mean there will be an even greater level of tiers in character usefulness. The idea as presented is cool but I fear it would have to be cheesed into things like “Hero zones” and “Runaway zones” that don’t follow the concept but are a cheap expansion to keep it running regularly and expand who is included. Hells Kitchen isn’t much use if Morbius matches some specials straight away for example.
3.) I don’t like the idea of the dilution of the 3 nodes available to play myself. If anything the two extra zones/nodes would need to be added as optional alternatives. Again…sounds like a messy job given the new Devs are struggling so much with even new Boss events having scaling nodes and Vaults with actual names.

I do like the idea though, so don’t take any of the above as criticism or disparaging. I could also be wrong about how you can code the board to stop MT cheesing things but have some doubts because of, uhm, reasons.

Where you see problems, I see opportunities my friend:

  1. Not every environmental zone will have special tiles (consider Affiliation zones). Additionally, special tiles that punish destruction can also be developed to hinder characters like Mighty Thor. For example, a Minefield zone that have bomb tiles that only go off when matched or destroyed or a Swamp zone that has quicksand CD tiles that start off at 12 and any character that matches or destroys such tiles will be stunned for the number of turns left on the CD. The goal is to make various environments where different types of skills are ideal.

  2. Oh there certainly will be some cheese! But also some veggies, fruits and soups, too! I think it’s perfectly cool that Morbius would be a great option for Hell’s Kitchen but not so great in Asgard. What I would really like to see are Environmental zones that highlight the skillset of the feature character or encourage the use of characters who are teammates. The goal is to help diversify viable styles of play and to add value to certain non-offensive skill types. Silver Surfer and 5* MoonKnight would thrive in a Swamp fight since they cannot be stunned while Mighty Thor and Chasm teams wouldn’t have such an easy-go.

  3. While I understand the initial reluctance and am not opposed to making normal PvP events with 5 nodes (3 normal and 2 environmental) to appease those who don’t like the change, I would first like players to try it with the proposed 3 to get a feel for it and provide feedback.

Finally, while I acknowledge the new Dev team has been struggling a bit with bugs as of late, I still hope they are not afraid to take on new projects to make the game more fun.

I definitely like the idea. :slight_smile:

I can certainly get on board with the last sentence. I do worry that being conservative is what resulted in the sadly bland Kang event currently running.

20

@fight4thedream said:

@Scofie said:
I think it’s s great idea. When I opened it up, I was thinking different shaped boards or a column that does triple damage when matched. But there are loads of different suggestions in the OP which I think would add to the game and increase creativity of teams.

I think those are some great ideas as well! I am particularly curious as to how different shaped boards would work out. What kind of shapes did you have in mind and how would matching interactions go?

I should say, I didn’t give it too much thought! It was more of an impression, but effectively some parts of the game board being locked out, like a + shape or an octagon, or an O, with middle tiles locked. They could be permanently locked, or just locked in the usual sense, able to be unlocked with a suitable match, or match 4/5. It could make that annoying special tile harder to get rid of, or create huge avalanche cascades as the locked sections get blasted apart. It affects the way the game is played without taking the fun away and making it a bit more random.

I was thinking at first that the bonus damage could be like the bonus points on a Scrabble board - double or triple damage when that is triggered.

Or even reflect damage when matched as an option in some environments, or in mirror matches where you try to do as little damage as possible because it hurts you rather than the enemy target.