If you make a better game you will make more money.

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
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I believe if you spent your time coming up with better content you would make more money. Everything you do is to force more transactions that have incrementally added up to a low value product.

Everything you are doing is marginalizing your whales. I don’t believe you are creating financial stability with any of this and firmly believe that you would overall make more money if you had a balanced, fun, strategic, fair and interesting game. I am sure all these changes make more short term financial success but how long can you keep hemorrhaging players before you need to implement an ‘I win this event button for the low, low price of 6 easy installments of $49.99’.

Well I for one whale am saying you will never receive one more cent from me, or all my RL friends that play until we read “D3 hires third parties to balance game and create new content”. The amount of downloads on this game is drastically slowing and instead of trying to fix the game and get back all your old customers you implement more ways to marginalize your customers and squeeze more out of the whales. Honestly there must be tens of thousands of players that load your game up once a month to see if you have changed your direction, then switch it off again in disgust.

Shield changes wont stop shield hop, or address the issue they just make the whales pay more to do it.

You know that everyone prefers the gauntlet but wont implement it because you make too much off token sales. Forcing peeps to play ungodly hours, Please stop and think, peeps with jobs ergo money, ergo the peeps you want playing your game can’t play PVE because they have to work. Your current system favors the unemployed, ergo the peeps without money, as the only people that can regularly clear the nodes. There’s a business phrase for this which is; ‘wow, that’s a dumb idea, someone actually does that?’

Boosts are the MOST broken advantage in the game but you wont address the issue because it generates money. Creates an unassailable advantage to the attacking team.

Tokens are a random lottery scam but you wont change it because it makes too much money. Seriously, everyone stop buying these. Just all agree to stop. I have bought 2 X 42 packs and got ZERO gold covers out of them.

Iso is really hard to get, or ridiculously expensive, nothing has been done because you are obviously selling it to someone. I actually believe you should stop selling iso all together.

True heal worked out for the better but wow that was a cash grab.

The new fast pace of character release and low iso combo must increase sales of; roster slots, covers, tokens and iso or you wouldn’t be doing it. But none of these new characters is mildly balanced and a real exercise in hit and miss but balance obviously doesn’t effect your bottom line or you would be more interested in it.

Alliance slots obviously stopped selling because the top 120 alliances hasn’t changed, ever. So you gave those away to try and appease the players, but that sure bit you in the rump.

Persistent power creep, particularly with 4 stars is just a nod at your whales. But I seriously believe the amount of whales interested in the game is diminishing, casual payers/ players have less reason to buy anything so that whole market is drying up putting more financial strain on your whales to keep you buoyant. This number must be declining so you need to keep coming up with more ways to make peeps open their wallets, and your flimsy veil of its for funbalance is wearing really thin. None of these changes address any of the actual issues, they just make you more money over the short term.

I know there are way more money grab changes you have made in the last 6 months I just can’t think of them. I look for value for money and let me tell you right now your product doesn’t offer that.

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I guess there are quite a few whales suffering from the sunken cost fallacy.

I agree with almost all points except that the shield changes will increase HP spent on shields. The cooldown simply does not allow it. A lot of small whales will also be put off by the increased cost for lower gain.

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One can rephrase that by saying either one will spend more on shields to hit 1300, or one will have to buy their covers instead.

Either way, 4*s just got more expensive.

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I love it when people make assumptions based on what they thin is the norm. It’s cute and sad. Let me address your post with some facts straight from the devs’ mouths.

Your assumption that the “whales” make up the majority, or a significant part of, the revenue for this game. We don’t. For every one “whale” spending 2k HP on an event to shield hop there’s at least one person who doesn’t place well buying a 10 pack of tokens.

You’re likely right, but you’re assuming that shields and boosts make up a significant portion of the revenue. They don’t. They only cost HP because if they didn’t they’d be abused more than they are now and that’s something they want to curb as much as possible.

You’re right about them making money off of tokens. It’s their largest source of revenue. that said, implementing Gauntlet for all PVEs/events wouldn’t change that. People still need featured character and character covers in general. As for work/game balance, that’s what time slices and rubberbanding are designed to help mitigate. Is it a 100% solution? No, but there is no such thing as a perfect solution.

Wrong. Shields are the most broken game mechanic right now. Regardless, neither shields nor boosts generate any significant income. Pennies was the word used when I last heard someone comment on it.

They’re not a scam. They list the odds of getting every character so you know what your chances are going in. The fact that you. or anyone, are buying them is sad, but it’s happening. The fact that people that know better are still buying them is sadder.

I agree. ISO is stupid expensive and they should start selling it and give more in game. That said, it’s not that hard to get. I’ve made over 100k since last season ended (1 week) and I didn’t do any lightning rounds. I could easily have added another 50K to that if I’d done lightning rounds, but I have a job.

True healing was the best thing that ever happened to this game. If you think it was a cash grab because it increased Health Pack sales then you’re wrong. Health Packs are an insignificant portion of the overall revenue.

I agree that they’ve released too many new characters too quickly, but I also hear they’re going to slack on that after Elektra so it should get less hectic soon. The quality could definitely be better, but at least you don’t need to spend ISO or HP on the bad ones.

X-Men, 5Deadly, Army or Sparta (RIP), SHIELD, Onslaught, and others have all had major shakeups since this happened. I don’t think it would have been as quick or easy for these alliances to fracture had it cost $100 in HP to start a new 20 man alliance. To say the top 120 hasn’t changed though is laughable. As someone that has been playing competitively since season 1, I can say that the leaderboards have changed dramatically. Remember when SHIELD was #1, 5DV#2, and X-Men non-existant? Remember when top 10 was mostly X-Men and 5D? That’s not even close to being the case now.

Adding more 4* characters is a natural transition for the game. As the top players run out of 3* characters to max, they’re going to need better characters to play with or they’ll get bored. You can’t make a bunch of new OP 3* without throwing off the balance so they have to make them .4*. Look for 5* characters in 2015 or 2016.

Most changes are about balance and fairness and not money. Sure money has a say in new characters and some other decisions, but I’ve yet to see any change to the game that could be considered even mostly money based. You have to remember that fourmites are a very small portion of the active MPQ playerbase and the top players in the game are an even smaller portion of that. We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things and we tend to be the exceptions to how the game is played by the majority of players, not the rule. If the majority of players played like the top 25 alliance’s members then brackets would be a lot tighter and scores a lot higher.

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Now that’s an interesting angle. Yeah they might think that the 1300 progression rewards are too cheap (less than 2500 HP) and want to shift it back to direct cover purchases or at least adjust the cost of hopping to almost match it.

Though if this is the case limiting the amount of shields seems counterproductive since not everone will move to direct cover purchases and simply increasing the price of the 3 hour shield would have been easier. But if you are right it would be quite sneaky. I still hope their intend was to improve PvP.

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You said exactly what I wanted to say.

Homeinvasion, for someone who complains about P2W, it’s illogical that you want them to create “more value” out of the purchases.

If they lower, say the prices of covers, MANY, MANY more people will instantly max their characters, because it’s “cheap”. That means that the number of 166 will increase quickly, which means the F2P players hit the wall much faster.

The key reason why we see f2p players who are able to make the transition, is because most players don’t max out their characters immediately. That and the exorbitant pricing of Iso, allows the f2p to compete on slightly equal footing.

Really, once you make things cheaper, then it forces the majority to spend more and more money to.keep up. Whales, by definition, only form a small part of the population. The fact that only a small number of people spending “big money” and that most other people don’t spend alot, is actually a good thing for the f2p majority.

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D3 has already stated that they are going to redo progressions after a few events to bring them in line with current prize payouts. This means that everyone hitting the 1300 progression 4* now should still be able to hit it once they change progressions.

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the point is how the new comer catch up . After grinding 3 months i feel boring to hell and hopeless to collect a " better" team not X force but just some random 166 team… not 270 . Ok i will tell all my new friends that MPQ is only for old guy. If you are new you never catch up anything. Good point

If there are NO further improvement in game play, not even a 10* 100* 500* wont save the game. what is different? NO they still match and use ability and nothing more…increase * is just push the number up. So many MMO face this problem and failure at last. I dont think MPQ will survive it. Oh Blizzard’s WoW Wow success before.

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So puerile. Let me tell you the facts. Don’t make me laugh, I love how all you Django’s blow your own trumpet and think that no one else is entitled to an opinion because you know best, cause you’ve played longer than us. Whatever kid, get back under the bridge. Atomized is the same, no matter what I post he downvotes me and makes a troll at me, whatever, have your little game, I am saying in my post that my money is going elsewhere as I am successful in many areas of my life and don’t need to fight tooth and nail to hold some slim lead I have in a mobile app game, as an adult to get self gratification.

Go ahead keep spending, keep playing, keep believing the lies that D3 tell you, I actually hope you find some shred of self decency and self respect out of giving other peeps on an internet forum a good telling to and swaggering around with a puffed out chest of self importance because you played since season 1. I actually hope you find the happiness that you are looking for; but you are the personification of the rot that has infected these forums and this game making it die its laborious death. Please give me a good telling to, I wont read it, I don’t care about your trolling opinion. Just like I don’t care if you can spend loads of money to be in a top 10 alliance, must really help you with the ladies that pick up line. Anyway have your little game, my eyes are wide open.

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The quoted part was indeed rude, but its reasonable given the tone you yourself gave in the original post: honestly the whole “whales are your lifeblood so we demand to be treated as much” sentiment is just incorrectly stated so many times on this forum that people like jamie and i are just tired of it because of how wrong it is. Every single other comment in his post was honest and not disrespectful, and is whats logically actually going on. After all, if shields were really the money makers, why would any rational company restrict the number their customers can be? You can cover your ears and block everyone else out, but doing so would make you the very “rot” that you proclaim jamie to be.

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Can I just say that every so often when we get a thread like this I imagine Will slapping his forehead and saying “Make the game… better? Gadzooks, that never occurred to us before!!”

And if you invent a limitless energy machine you’ll make more money too. It’s just that simple!

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This is one of my biggest complaints right now. While the 1*-2* transition is way easier now than before they gave out 2* covers like crazy, the 2*+ transition is much harder and 3*-4* nearly impossible. It’s taken me 9 months (and hundreds of dollars) to get the roster I have now and I’m still only a top 5-10 player on good days. I have one viable 4* and he’s only level 220. I’ll have Goddess online next, but I still need a bunch of covers and ISO. If it’s this bad for someone like me with my roster, I can’t imagine how bad it is for a 2* transitioner.

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OK I’ll admit I was an ass and I’ll apologize for it. I’m tired of people on these forums thinking that the game needs to change for a small subsection of the player base instead of rolling with the changes and finding new ways to play and enjoy the game. I’ve been here through every change since seasons started and while I’ve disagreed with some of them and I think other still need work, overall I think the game is better. I’ve had to alter my play style, my roster use, my priorities, but the game is still fun for me and worth every penny. I have a very busy life and this is the only game I really have the time to play these days so instead of buying a PS4 or XB1 (or both) or going to the movies or whatever, I play MPQ (and a bit of classic NES/SNES games).

As far as knowing best, I can’t say we know best, but our members tend to take a less reactionary approach to the game than others. I fully understand people that get worked up over this (and that passion is great!), but I’m just not that way and neither are many of my alliance mates. I’m sorry you feel like you’re being singled out, but to be honest we troll lots of people, even ones we like, and Atomized is a dick so you can ignore him. I’m sorry you feel the need to leave, but I think a lot of people could benefit from taking a step back from the ultra-hardcore play and maybe go “casual” for a bit. It really does give you perspective. DU manages to be top 25 (only 2k ISO less rewards than t10) and we’re all pretty casual.

All that said, it’s really sad that you feel that you need to leave and I think that if you stuck it out you’d be OK.

Again, sorry for being a dick and I’m sorry I gave you a negative impression of me. I’m really not that bad of a guy,

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If this game were more tradition in the sense that you leveled characters steadily by simply playing the game (not at the snails pace now unless you sink in a ton of money) I’d have a lot more friends playing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I’d pay $25 for this game if I could play it on PSVita and just earn the characters by unlocking them.” But the simple sad truth is nothing about this game or any F2P game will change until “whales” stop spending hundreds, if not thousands to feed their addiction. And it is exactly that, an addiction. Devs and publishers know it and they feed off of it. Color it with whatever justification you want but spending that much money on a game like this is no different than sinking your next paycheck into a slot machine or picking up another handle of Smirnoff.

Game Theory explains it very well:

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Keep entertain old player is kind of " waste of time" . As basic element of the game can not be changed, old player eventually burn out and leave. No matter how they introduce 5* 10* or 100* nothing change. Your player base will drop very fast. The only way i learn from other long live game is that " keep the new comer catch up easily but difficult to be the top "

The worst thing is 3* pool. if you build such a big character pool than you should balance the power of character inside it first. Next make it popular to every player. As 3* pool contain the largest no of character , they should be easy assess and use. However new comer just look at it and impossible to reach there! The largest content of the game is unreachable!.. is it a fundamental failure?

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Yeah that’s the other half of it. You need to keep everyone engaged or you lose players quick. New players need to be able to catch up and veterans need to feel like they have a reason to keep playing other than habit.

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Keep entertain old player is kind of " waste of time" . As basic element of the game can not be changed, old player eventually burn out and leave. No matter how they introduce 5* 10* or 100* nothing change. Your player base will drop very fast. The only way i learn from other long live game is that " keep the new comer catch up easily but difficult to be the top "

I think balance the character is much more important than everything. Improve synergy between character. Character is good or not is not depends on its damage skill but synergy with each other. Give reasons old guy to try other setting than sentry bomb and X force. 4* should close to 3* that let the 3* guy to challenge them. They are symbol only. The back bone of every player is 3* team.

the 3* pool should be easy to assess but difficult to fully build up. easy to assess to a useful state but not perfect team. However it is difficult to assess and impossible to build up now . It is too late now i m tied . May be demiurge is young and no experience in long live game. the license is wasted very soon

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I actually find that there are a few 3* teams out there that can reliably kill 4* teams. LThor, Daken, DP, Hood, and others are all great team comps. Hell, OBW is still a viable character on a team of 3*.

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