If Demiurge Were To Start Over

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

We all know there are several major flaws in the game that no matter how much or hard folks complain about that will never get changed. From progress being blocked by randomness to story events actually being player versus playing in disguise. Now imagine if you will that Demiurge announce that in 6 months time Marvel Puzzle Quest 2 will be launching and support for the original will officially end, what features would you like to see either carried over or added and best possible ways to bring in the money while being player friendly?

  1. Do away with roster slots, you earn or win a character you shouldn’t have to pay to use it.

  2. Tiered versus events, however all characters should have a 1*, 2*, 3* version and more powerful characters (abilities not rairities) should be limited to 4* and 5*. Players could then select what tier they wish to play in but get locked out of the other tiers. Rewards could be either that events featured character but at the next tier or the next events featured character at the same tier. For players who rank low tiered tokens or other consumable resources. Obviously the higher level you play the better the rewards.

  3. Not a popular one this but introduce a cool down between leaving an alliance and joining another, this should help foster greater bonds within a single alliance instead of the top alliances moving members around a group of alliances to farm the best scores.

  4. All story events to be alliance based. The story path branches off with one for less developed rosters (1* and 2*), a branch for intermediate rosters (2* and 3*) and the developed rosters (3* and above), checkpoints could be converging points for the branches and there is a boss battle at the end with everyone who damages the boss getting a share of the rewards. Each story event to last a fixed period of 4.25 days so players in every timezone get a favourable start and finish time.

  5. So no cover goes to waste each additional cover over the cap can be used to add an additional level to your character until the level cap is reached, after that duplicate characters are made alleviating health pack usage. Due to this covers won’t drop during usual play, only from event rewards or tokens.

  6. Characters do not share health pools between versus and story events.

  7. Players do not lose points for defensive losses. If the game ran on true players versus player point losses would be acceptable, as it is AI losses are unacceptable.

Now how to make money? The 2 largest money making avenues of roster slots and shields have been outmoded so that revenue needs to be recouped.

  1. More options for premium boosts. Health mitigation during battle, 1.5x points, maybe bring back the old affiliation boosts.

  2. More health pack options. Recover 0.25, 0.5 or full health.

  3. Revives. No amount of first aid will help a downed ally, for those you will need something with a little more oomph!

  4. Bring back being able to purchase covers direct, whales will be happy and those cheapskate players will be able to save up for them.

  5. Okay at the top of this post I stated randomness is the biggest pita there is. I play a fair few f2p games and a common trend is randomness so it needs to stay, however it also needs to be minimised. Tiered tokens should be introduced, the higher the tier the more costly. Those who enjoy throwing money at the game get instant gratification and it also helps give a sense of progression.

  6. Event token packs should include at least one of the featured character. In what world does it make sense to buy a character event token pack and not get that character? Again the wallet warriors get what they want and the rest can save for a pack that features a character they really like.

  7. Bring back having to pay for expanding alliances. Again an unpopular move but if done right it is a great way to make money. If alliance slots were cheap enough and a fixed price even free players could form a full alliance.

2

I agree that we shouldn’t lose characters we earn or win. This being said, I’m ok with having to buy slots with HP that I have to earn. But do not let covers expire That way people can pay to buy slots if they want to use their characters immediately, and Demi can still make money.

I absolutely agree that the higher level you are/play, the better the rewards. You should climb ladders of success receiving better rewards so you can keep climbing. That’s how GAMES work. Tiered events sound fine.

Sounds interesting and fun!

I’m actually ok with the championing aspect and having to use ISO to get there. But there should probably be more ISO to do this.

YES. ONE MILLION TIMES YES. I don’t mind placing absolutely last in every PVP if I didn’t lose points towards MY PROGRESSION.

Interesting to add different boosts. And only being able to buy boosts instead of earning might be a good way to make money for them.

If they were a lot cheaper, otherwise I don’t think people would pay anything for something they could wait 15 minutes for. But I could be wrong!

You can still wait a certain amount of time until they revive and still need some health packs? Because I definitely would not want to have to pay every time my character died.

While I wouldn’t do this, I am fine with richer people than me being able to do this.

Are you saying it should always give you the featured character or it should give you two characters, the featured character and someone else?

Here are my opinions! The opinions of a casual player who is SLOWLY building his 3* army and hoards tokens to almost 300 tacos and over 3000 of other tokens combined. icon_lol.gif

3

If starting over…I think they’d just limit these forums to News & Announcements only icon_lol.gif

4

Not do 5* meta (at least in the way they have done them). The game had issues before 5* but they for most part broke the game. 5* are way too powerful and should have started at lower levels and been incrementally better than 4*. Just like 4* are better than 3*. Now I know some of you say but there are 3* better than 4*? Yes there are however that is totally due to poor character design in some 4* not the meta between 3* and 4*. 5* was the jumping the shark moment for this game.

5

Agree with pretty much every idea you suggest.

Especially defensive losses in PvP. Star wars galaxy of heroes has a PvP system were you never lose points, you go up and down in rankings but without losing points.

I’d also like to add to your list the ability to change a cover colour by spending x amount of hp.

And also a slight change in game mechanics, points/iso bonuses for in match challenges
Win without using an ability = x amount of iso
Use all powers at least once = x amount of iso

You get the idea.

6

  1. Do away with roster slots. Maybe do something similar to Marvel Heroes - you have access to everybody at limited power levels, but you need either HP (or something like it) or covers to grow the character beyond that level. HP would allow you to fully unlock the character and spec it however, covers would allow you to slowly grow the character if you’re willing to put in the time. But you get 1/1/1 for everybody.

  2. Get rid of competitive PVE, or else introduce the concept of “leagues,” where people in a particular roster band are only placed in brackets with people who have similar roster strengths. Don’t count 1/1/1, or allow them to be used in competitive events (I’ll come back to this). Implement scaling based on covers, not levels; you want to encourage people to level their characters. At the same time, remember that people you discourage are not going to come back, so try to keep the challenging/punishing balance more on the “challenging” side.

2a) If you implement “leagues,” make sure there’s plenty of non-competitive PVE content, also. Stuff for more casual players, progression rewards and a greater range (pun intended) of post-battle rewards. Look at how the original Puzzle Quest handled the RPG side of things for an example of how you can do this. I’m not sure the “capture castles and then do stuff with them mechanic” translates precisely to MPQ, but you could certainly do something along those lines. That cuts down on the need for “story” content, because you’d be able to reserve that specifically for big “bad guy headquarters” fights, and have most fights be of the random combat variety. Go stop the Hand over there, take down the Maggia here. Maybe you have periodic encounters with solo villains in a 1v1 fight where you use one character against Bullseye or whomever. Your big 3v3 boss fights might be things like “stop the breakout at the Raft,” or go to Latveria and take down Doom," etc. Over time, your control over a region deteriorates, allowing those big boss battles to respawn. It would amount to procedurally generated content that players could play casually for rewards without feeling forced to grind or to compete against newbies/vets (depending on which side aggravates you currently) for needed rewards. The actual “this is a story that we’re telling” content could be for the “leagues” and have actual storylines, kind of like what we see in MPQ now. This sandbox PVE is where the 1/1/1 could come out and play, because there wouldn’t be a concern that those characters would be artificially lowering the challenge level for “league” players. If you do it right, sandbox PVE is also where those characters would see most of their growth, allowing them to graduate to “league” play.

  1. Do whatever you’re gonna do with PVP. Just make sure that if you have PVE “leagues” and still want PVP, that you also have the sandbox stuff I mentioned above. Get rid of defensive losses. Let people grind their way to the top of the leaderboards, if you like, but give lower level players a reasonable shot at achieving those progression rewards. The more people you have playing PVP and accruing points, the more targets those high end players have. Score inflation? Sure. But the alternative is that you discourage players from playing PVP regularly if they feel like every win for 40 points is going to be accompanied by three losses for 120 points. Giving players a path to progression rewards in PVP that doesn’t make them feel like one step forward is accompanied by three steps back keeps them invested in your game because there’s additional content to play.

  2. Instead of going 1*, 2*, 3*, etc, take a page from Future Fight’s book, and design a progression path for each character you release so that a 1* can eventually rank up to a 5*. Maybe that’s where you can get some of the monetization back if you’re dispensing with roster slots - ranking up would cost HP, progressively more at each star level, or with the number of characters reaching that new rank. Just make sure you set a cost cap and make it known up front to avoid a repeat of what happened with roster slots here. Nobody is likely to feel resentful that they can’t rank up their 1* to a 5* for free (or at least not free AND easily), but they ARE likely to feel resentful if they have to choose between rostering a character who’s actually useful to them in the short-term and somebody they’d like to play with long-term but can’t really use. Oh, wait, that’s where we are now.

I’ll edit this post if I think of other things, but that’s just off the top of my head.

7

Sorry, no. The whole point of the game (I admit, it’s badly executed given for how low the covers sell) is to choose between spending the Hero points to roster a character or selling it for the ISO. If you remove the choice, you’ll only have more complaints about ISO shortage.

  1. Tiered versus events, however all characters should have a 1*, 2*, 3* version and more powerful characters (abilities not rairities) should be limited to 4* and 5*. Players could then select what tier they wish to play in but get locked out of the other tiers. Rewards could be either that events featured character but at the next tier or the next events featured character at the same tier. For players who rank low tiered tokens or other consumable resources. Obviously the higher level you play the better the rewards.

I’m not opposed to tiered versus events, it does depend on how it is executed. I do not agree however with the multiple rarities for all characters. How exactly would you implement that? All five rarities have the same abilities? All of them different? You can’t forget that every new character would have to have five versions as well. So do you take the lazy way and make them all the same, or get all different ones so that there will be a new character once every six months? I would rather have them introduce more 2* and 3* characters to develop a better meta for those tiers (and have them introduce more villains so there’s more opposition than just the Dark Avengers.

  1. All story events to be alliance based. The story path branches off with one for less developed rosters (1* and 2*), a branch for intermediate rosters (2* and 3*) and the developed rosters (3* and above), checkpoints could be converging points for the branches and there is a boss battle at the end with everyone who damages the boss getting a share of the rewards. Each story event to last a fixed period of 4.25 days so players in every timezone get a favourable start and finish time.

I’m okay with this.

  1. So no cover goes to waste each additional cover over the cap can be used to add an additional level to your character until the level cap is reached, after that duplicate characters are made alleviating health pack usage. Due to this covers won’t drop during usual play, only from event rewards or tokens.

I’m sorry, again, I’m not feeling this. Considering that the ISO cost increases on later levels this might screw players over. My Classic Daken for instance was 1/5/1 when I got my sixth black cover. Give an option to sell that cover through your character level screen for twice the ISO I can get with, but just adding a level like that, nah.

  1. Characters do not share health pools between versus and story events.

I’m not sure about this. You should have to make a choice between versus and story.

  1. Players do not lose points for defensive losses. If the game ran on true players versus player point losses would be acceptable, as it is AI losses are unacceptable.

I don’t have a problem with losing points for ranks. It’s for the progression rewards however that it hurts. I’d rather have two types of points, one variable for ranks, one stable for progression.

Now how to make money? The 2 largest money making avenues of roster slots and shields have been outmoded so that revenue needs to be recouped.

  1. More options for premium boosts. Health mitigation during battle, 1.5x points, maybe bring back the old affiliation boosts.

I’m sorry, this sounds like P2W. Defence tiles can be mitigated but an untouchable defence? That makes pvp too hard.

  1. More health pack options. Recover 0.25, 0.5 or full health.

Again, this is about choice. Do you use a health pack or do you risk losing because you underestimated the opposition? Risk/reward system.

  1. Revives. No amount of first aid will help a downed ally, for those you will need something with a little more oomph!

Wait, pay to revive someone? I’d rather not.

  1. Bring back being able to purchase covers direct, whales will be happy and those cheapskate players will be able to save up for them.

Again, sounds like P2W.

  1. Okay at the top of this post I stated randomness is the biggest pita there is. I play a fair few f2p games and a common trend is randomness so it needs to stay, however it also needs to be minimised. Tiered tokens should be introduced, the higher the tier the more costly. Those who enjoy throwing money at the game get instant gratification and it also helps give a sense of progression.

But if you can buy covers, why would you buy tokens?

  1. Event token packs should include at least one of the featured character. In what world does it make sense to buy a character event token pack and not get that character? Again the wallet warriors get what they want and the rest can save for a pack that features a character they really like.

I can get with this. But I feel it depends on the type of character (I can get with a guaranteed 3*, but a 4* is a bit too much). Maybe scale the chance (2 covers for a 2*, 1 cover for a 3*, 50% chance of a 4*?).

  1. Bring back having to pay for expanding alliances. Again an unpopular move but if done right it is a great way to make money. If alliance slots were cheap enough and a fixed price even free players could form a full alliance.

Wait, how can you form a full alliance as a free player if you have to pay for it?

8

Nah. The way you handle that isn’t to just put a max cover character on the roster and say “okay kids, go level them,” but to give them the teaser. Kinda like how Marvel Heroes lets you play everybody to level 10 before you decide whether to invest resources in them. If you have no kitties to give about CHulk, you aren’t going to invest resources in him…but if you pull a CHulk cover, you’re going to be less likely to bitch about how RNG screwed you, because you can still invest that cover into the character. Maybe you’d RATHER have had a Teen Jean cover, and that’s legit, but the choice you’re being asked to make is who to invest in leveling rather than who to invest in even having the ability to use.

There’s other ways you can encourage a resource sink/spending without holding people hostage over the ability to even roster the character. Future Fight, I have nearly every character in the game. There are some I can’t get, either because I haven’t subscribed, or because earning them is exclusive to a particular game mode I’m not ready for, and that’s fine. But I still have to choose - which character do I invest my daily biometric drops in? Who do I use EXP chips on? Etc. The tail of my roster is much weaker than the head of my roster, and it’s basically the same thing. I have to choose who to spend the resources on. What I DON’T have to do is decide whether I’d rather have Amadeus Cho on my roster or Scott Lang. I can have both, and if it takes me a year and a half to get to the point where I’m ready to start investing resources on the other one, that’s fine. There are so many characters in the game that it’s not an issue. There’s no fear that I’m suddenly going to be level 60 6* mastery (max champ in MPQ terms, although I guess there’s a new thing too) on every character immediately. Or imminently. Or soon at all. But I’m not being asked to choose whether I want to eschew a character or hand over money.

9

People already have a teaser with the loaner PVP’s (not ideal, but it does give a taste). Also, why would I want a Chulk on my roster? At least Scott Lang is useful in PVE, but Chulk is never useful. Also, if you can’t sell covers, how do you get the ISO to level them? I’m sorry, maybe it is a good idea to have every character unlocked, but I’m not feeling it for this model. What works for one game doesn’t mean it works for another.

10

“with the loaner PVP’s” is the key word there. “Hey, kids, want to try this character? Go play a game mode you may have no interest in.”

Why would you want a CHulk on your roster? I dunno, but a) I’m throwing names out there, not zeroing in on specific characters and b) in this hypothetical “If Demiurge Were to Start Over” world, who’s to say that the powers the characters have would be the same? Maybe CHulk WOULD be Totally Awesome. Maybe Ant-Man would kinda blow. Maybe they’d both be well designed. Who knows? The point is, you’re looking past the whole “how the roster should be handled” point and focusing instead on “eww this character sucks why would I want him.”

As far as “how do you get the ISO to level them,” there’s all kinds of solutions. Increase the flow of ISO from events; increase the flow of ISO from DDQ or whatever similar system exists in this MPQ reimagining; have ISO flow from random encounters if they implement that old-school Puzzle Quest map system I spent some time discussing a few posts ago; have covers drop not as specific characters, but as specific rarities, applicable to any character in that rarity band and have leveling up work the way champions do instead of the way it works in the game as constituted.

In that latter example, what you might do is give a certain number of power points (think of your starting SPECIAL score in Fallout, or the ability points you have to work with in D&D) and have players spec their characters initially with that. But you scale those abilities based on level. So you might have only two “covers” in Scott Lang, but he’s still 3/5/5 or however you spent your 13 points. He’s a 4* rarity character, so you can’t level him with 1* covers. If a 4* cover drops, though, you can spend that cover on any 4* rarity character (kind of like how Future Fight splits characters into damage types and your free daily biometrics can be applied to any character of that specific damage type). Maybe allow covers to be upconverted at a particular rate, so if you have 100 1* covers, you could exchange that for 25 2* covers, 5 3* covers, or 1 4* cover (but not for 5* covers). Since 1 cover = 1 level in this hypothetical, you’re still getting the same amount of resources from the redemption of those 1* covers that you would have otherwise. You’d set an exchange rate also for 2* to 3* or 4*, 3* to 4*, and 4* to 5*.

I mean, there’s all kinds of ways to envision a system like that working without getting hung up on “oh noes how would we get the ISO being able to have every character on the roster without paying for roster spots would never work.” Other games make it work, and even if the specific Future Fight model wouldn’t work well for MPQ, there are any number of ways you could adapt something similar.

You know what the bonus is? Demiurge could release a new character every damn day if they wanted to under that system. Why would you have the reaction of UGH DEMIURGE WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME GRIND A NEW CHARACTER RELEASE OVER THIS HOLIDAY if the character is on the roster in teaser form and you can decide whether or not you ever want to invest resources in him, her, or it?

The stress of MUST GRIND FOR NEW CHARACTER goes away, the resentment of UGH RNGESUS BONED ME when you get a character you either can’t use (as in when I pulled an OML way before my roster was ready for it) or don’t want goes away, and while that doesn’t mean game decisions become all puppies and sunshine, the “you have to choose isn’t this fun” choice becomes about who you want to use, not whether you feel like your wallet is being held for ransom.