Disclaimer:
MPQ has 2 areas: Versus which is PvP and we won’t talk about here, and Story which wants to be PvE (or does it ?). Now if the original design and intention was to have a mix of PvE and PvP in the Story chapter, that’s fine, but as it is now, the current Story mode does not resemblance the classic PvE. Furthermore, the methods used to differentiate players for the placement ranking are opposed to what PvE means and suggest.
As most of us know, PvE stands for Player vs Environment, and it’s a game mode that requires no competition with other players. And thus people who don’t enjoy competing with others for prizes, would have a game mode suited for them. Unfortunately, the Story mode in MPQ doesn’t respect this concept (which is fine as long as it was intended like so).
Knowing this we have 2 scenarios to talk about:
- New PvE only
- Current PvE with different methods for player placement
Note! Long post ahead!
What’s wrong with Story mode ?
Before we get specific let me tell you what I dislike about the current PvE:
A. Timing & Speed = Win
In order to compete for top 10, all you need is timing and speed. Exactly the opposite of what a classic PvE means.
A lot of people feel that competing on PvE is like a chore because of this. You have to enter at precise hours and play as fast as you can and compete with other players. While I don’t necessarily dislike competing with others (even though it’s PvE we’re talking about), I absolutely dislike the methods for player placement. We have several other options and we will talk about when we get specific.
Sure you can say that if you don’t like it you don’t have to compete. And I agree, but knowing that you lose rewards for not being fast enough or that you are punished because you have a job and you cannot enter & play at the exact time you need, is a bit too far.
I know the interest is to have people play as often as possible, but I don’t think this is the right solution to obtain that. Give people options and challenges and they will play without you forcing them. What if a player wants to complete all the sub missions in 1 hour, or maybe wants to play a mission once at every 2 hours, because that’s how his schedule lets him ? Right now, doing so, he has no chance to compete in placement, and that’s not suited for a PvE mode.
B. Other than endurance, there’s no challenge.
Surely the word Puzzle isn’t used for the sake of it. Right ? We actually need more variety in challenges and type of missions. Beating the same mission 7 times is definitely not fun for anyone. Yea, sure, the missions get a bit harder with every repetition, but that’s about it. They are repetitive and makes you grind for points, but they don’t feel challenging from the thinking point of view.
The last boss fight with Kaelicius, was a perfect example of one thing that can be done. That fight really made us think about what teams to make in order to deal with him properly. But the challenge doesn’t have to stop there.
This being said, lets address the suggestions.
Talking Points: Suggestions
1. PvE only
Now there might be some disagreeing with me here, because this change would mean less rewards (no more players, no more placement), but this doesn’t have to be the case. You can always add special missions that can grant extra rewards. As from a definition point of view, this would actually be a classic PvE.
Now the idea behind this is simple: while PvP should be about competition and all that is involved there (timing, speed, power, bonuses, shield, and so on), PvE should be about the story, should not be about speed or timing under no circumstance. Instead it should focus on character development, story telling, ability understanding & testing, hard puzzle challenges from time to time, and so on.
Right now Story mode is just a longer PvP masked with better progression rewards and mission based instead of pure versus teams. I’m not saying that it has no place in the game, but it could be better shifted toward environment & story rather than competition and grinding.
The idea of PvE is to make you keen of playing more because of the challenge, opposed to PvP in which you fight for power. In PvE I want to be able to test my heroes against certain powerful teams or scenarios & even try out some characters I don’t own. I don’t want to hurry and storm through it like in PvP, I want to take my time and enjoy the game in my own pace. That’s all PvE is about.
2. Current PvE, but no timing & no speed.
Again, PvE should have a different pace than PvP. So that means I don’t want to see any timing or speed requirements for max progression.
You want player placement ? Fine. But find something else to make a difference, like hard challenges, actual puzzle scenarios, special nodes with different rules, more boss fights like Kaelicius, and so on.
You can still use time/speed in the equation, but instead of seeing how fast someone can complete a sub, you can see the best time for beating a certain mission. That changes everything, because you can play that mission any time during the sub, and it would only save the best time, regardless of how many attempts you had (of course number of attempts could also be limited or be part of the formula that gives you points afterwards).
Example: have a special node with 5 different tiers. Only requirement: teams of heroes from the same rarity (1* to 5* only teams). And make a placement on the best time to beat the mission and award points or rewards based on this ranking.. A 3* team with a better time than a 4* team gets higher in ranking. If even, first best score is better. You can also make a difference between result from the levels of the heroes used. If a level 270 Gamora, 270 Grocket and 270 Medusa was faster than a 300 Gamora, 270 Medusa and 270 Blade, than it has a higher rank because of overall lower level with better score. The number of attempts to obtain that score can also influence your rank: more attempts, less points.
There could also be missions in which you have to play a certain puzzle with certain heroes, and you don’t have to have them. You get a certain board with 1 to 3 challenges and see if you’re able to do them. Time of completion could award more points, but again it’s fine because it doesn’t matter at which point in the day I would play the mission, only the time I consumed to complete it.
And there are plenty ideas here that can be used to both suggestions (PvE only or current PvE updated)
Other Nodes ideas:
- Required chars (behemoth style) - I would go with name requirement, not rarity (civil war style. Name wolverine and I use what rarity I want).
- Affiliation nodes (team chars) - this is something surely considered, but yet to be implemented. Let’s take advantage of the affiliations in game. X-Men vs Brotherhood, Guardians vs Cosmic heroes, Avengers, Team Cap, Team Ironman, Spiderverse, Inhumans, and so on. You can have missions that gives advantage for certain affiliation or disadvantage for other. Plenty space to implement ideas here.
- Rarity nodes (best time) - described already
- Different challenges with bonus rewards like
- nodes without special tiles or healing - you can use whoever you want, but special tiles don’t have any effect and no healing.
- nodes with sudden death - every turn a random hero gets his life hit with a certain amount
- Certain scenarios (actual puzzle - win the game in X moves with a preset team and board) - already described
- Boss fights like Kaelicius
So, as you can see, there is plenty room for improvement. Bottom line is PvE should have a steady pace (opposed to PvP) with no timing or speed in mind and be packed with puzzles and different required special missions that bring more challenges to the player, without the feeling that you have to compete with others. Exceptions can be made by missions that use ‘best time’ scenarios, but the requirement is only for that mission alone, not the entire event.
