Is MPQ still fun for you? (Poll)

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Would be interesting to see how many say Yes and how many say No.

[spoiler]I voted No.

I play mainly PVE and normally up to about 800 to 900 points for PVP. Up to Day 595 now with a couple months break in between. It’s becoming frustrating and rage inducing instead of fun for me.
There are so many reasons from the nerfing of an entire tier of 3*, to goons generating free AP, to increasing difficulty the more the roster develops, to the same pathetic rewards no matter how difficult your opponents are or how much you grind etc

As far as i’m concerned, the devs deserve most, if not all, the negative criticism thrown at them these past few months.[/spoiler]

Edit: added “Poll” to the subject title

2

I wouldn’t still be playing it if I didn’t find it fun, but there are a lot of terrible decisions the devs has made recently. Even when they came up with a brilliant idea like Championing, they still managed to completely ruin it with the 3-star tier nerf.

The recent wave of 3-star buffs was good (even if the Vision one was pointless), but it looks like there won’t be any more for the foreseeable future.

3

Quick synopsis of my situation: I’m coming up on my two year daily reward. Started playing within the first week or so after the game came out, and took an extended break a while back due to burnout. (For about whatever the difference in time is between the furthest rewards right now and 2 years.) I have all the 4*'s rostered, with a pair championed. Several other 4* with max covers, but levels under 200 due to iso being in short supply. All 3* are max covered and about 2/3 of them champed. Have every 5* but GG, with a level 360 Phoenix my highest, and a 1 cover BSSM my lowest.

I’m somewhere in the middle. It’s certainly not as fun as it used to be. I think I may be in the “sweet spot” where I’m just not high enough leveled with the handful of “required” 4* to make that next step up after the nerf bat hit the 3* roster. I can still usually get a top 10 finish (or for sure top 20) on a new character release, but it’s not particularly easy with my roster. So I’m not an elite player, but I can get some decent results.

My issue is that I still like the gameplay itself. I have loved match 3 games for a long time, and have particularly enjoyed the Puzzle Quest series since I played the first one on the Xbox 360 almost a decade ago. The gameplay, combined with the Marvel license appeals to two things I enjoy, and I think the two go well together. It’s always fun to see new characters being introduced, but it’s getting tougher to overlook how quickly the game is passing me by.

Characters are being released faster than I can possibly get them covered and made usable, even if I get 3-4 covers immediately from the release event. I’m a mediocre PVP player, and do that secondarily to the PVE events. If the PVE changes to the “trial run” format that just happened, that half of the game will no longer be playable for me due to the covered-but-not-leveled condition of my roster. (EOTS nodes were largely unplayable beyond the second replay on the past week.) If that happens, the decision will be quite simple, and I’ll set it aside again.

I very much like the game, and I want it to return to being fun. I’m not sure how exactly these recent changes have affected everyone else, but for me, it’s making the way I have to play the game in any “competitive” manner more of a chore, and less of a hobby. I now really only play with any regularity for release events, and take off most every PVE event in between, and just dabble in PVP and hit the DDQ every day in a futile attempt to get my roster caught up. I look at the two dozen or so 4* characters sitting, unusable, with 4-9 covers in my roster and it becomes clear I’m just not ever catching up. The unfortunate thing is that I’m almost hoping they make the PVE changes to the new format, so I can finally know I’m done.

4

3* nerf, ISO shortage and unpredictable chances for 4-5*. So no, game is not fun at all for me now.

5

Everybody voting NO and continues playing should really think about what the hell they are doing. (As long the no was honest and not a form of protest about the scaling tests)
Yes, you might have put lots of money and time into this game, but spending precious life time with doing things that are actually fun should be more important…

6

I voted “Yes” but I suppose it would help if I contextualized my vote.

The basic match 3 game mechanic is solid and fun and every now and then there is a new character that sparks my interest and helps keep things “fresh”. Additionally, since I have an over-active imagination I am able to create scenarios, rivalries and narratives that help keep me entertained. For instance, Versus events are currently in the midst of “The Great Cup Cake War” where there are two sides: The Bakers and the Butchers. I am a pirate mercenary assassin hired to protect the Bakers, and I could go on and on about the current political intrigue, characters and events in this “Great War” but that would risk going off tangent.

So to bring it back to the point, I am actively compensating for a lack of narrative. There is no “quest” in Puzzle Quest. No overarching theme, no great enemy to do battle against. There is just the great match 3 game mechanic with cool characters. And after a certain amount of time that simple formula grows stale. I think for the most part players that stick around with game fall under three intermeshed categories:

  1. Like Marvel and are playing the game at a pace they feel comfortable with. They don’t need to have the newest character fully covered immediately, can take a break from the game without feeling they are falling behind and don’t worry so much about placement or competition. (The vast majority of the player base).

  2. People who have made good friends with their alliance and other players and probably do a lot of out of game communicating. They like Marvel, the basic game play elements of the game and have figured out how to maximize their rewards through their efforts. They have to a certain degree perfected the art of winning at this game and have expectations in regards to how much reward they should receive for their efforts. (I think a lot of forumers fall within this category)

  3. People who have invested a lot of time and/or money into the game and now feel compelled to continue playing because they don’t want to feel they have wasted said time and/or money. However, the game’s flaws only continue to shine brighter and brighter with each passing day they play, mocking them as they try to escape their feeling of ennui. For such players the words “God is cruel” is written upon the lips of their hearts and they are quick to voice their complaints about anything, whether real or imagined. (We have a few of these on the forum, too, bless their bleeding hearts).

Some things to note before I am taken to task about this pseudo-anaylsis:

a. I did say intermeshed for a reason. These are not distinct categories, that is to say, a player can fall into more than one category. I, myself, fall into all three plus one or two minor categories that shall not be mentioned since they are not fruitful for discussion.

b. I also mentioned who stick around with the game, so if you are a new player this part of the discussion is not in reference to your experience.

c. Some of you may have noticed that I mentioned players that like Marvel and not players that like the original Puzzle Quest. Having never played the original Puzzle Quest series I don’t know how much akin MPQ is it to it but having seen the fans of the PQ shrink over the months on this forum and from one or two conversations I have had with friends that I have played PQ my assumption is that Puzzle Quest fans do not consider MPQ a legitimate successor of original Puzzle Quest series. It’s probably better to consider it an offshoot. If there are any Puzzle Quest fans still around it would be awesome to get their take on MPQ in terms of the prior Puzzle Quest series.

d. Admittedly this is all just speculation. I have no numbers to back up my claims, no credentials to give it some sort of voice of authority; just a handful of assumptions.

Now with all that said, I will say …oh time to do my PvE grind clear…brb!

(24 minutes later) and back! Whew that Venom + Carnage node is a doozy! (^^;) So where was I? Ah yes! I will say that I do get the frustration many members have with development team’s choices. I was gonna save this talk for another post but since it seems appropriate here, might as well get the ball rolling:

A lot of player frustration originates from two main factors:

  1. Employing a universal event system rather than a tiered event system
  2. The rewards distribution system

One of the strangest things about MPQ is that beginner or veteran, we all play the same events. I assume this was done to save man hours so the development team didn’t have to spend time trying to create new events to keep up with its aging player base and in the short term it might have made sense but in the long term you have the problem that your older players are now fighting the same opponents for umpteenth time in PvE while your younger players get torn apart in PvP after passing a certain point threshold.

To try to mitigate this, the development team has instituted a bracketing system that separates new and casual players from hardcore and veteran players. Obviously new players and casual players won’t continue playing if all the best rewards are always being taken by the same people and they always end up at the bottom half of the 500/1000 player pool.

But I believe this “invisible” bracketing system is a band-aid and that there is a much better way: Tiered Event play with a restructuring of the reward system.

My fellow mod-in-arms Jamie had an excellent idea for PvP which I present to you here:

Original post here: https://forums.505go.com/discussion/40723

But I believe PvE could also use a similar overhaul. Instead of time slices, offer the players a flat-scaled difficulty system where they choose the difficulty of the event. For example:

  • Easy: For 1 and 2* players. Top rewards for completion are 2* covers, 50HP and 500 ISO. CP only earnable through node clears.
    Normal: For 2 and 3* players. Top rewards for completion are 3* covers, 100HP and 1000 ISO, 5 CP and CP earnable through node clears. (For new 4* characters, the final progression reward would be one 4* cover)
    Hard: For 3 and 4* players. Top rewards for completion are 4* covers, 200HP and 5000 ISO, 10CP and CP earnable through node clears. (For new 4* characters, 3 covers earnable)
    Deadly: For 4 and 5* players. Top rewards for completion are 1 5* cover, more 4* covers, 300HP and 10,000HP, 20CP and CP earnable through node clears.

(For new 4* characters, 5 covers earnable)

No rank rewards. No competition. If you have a more developed roster but want to take it easy, you can select an easier level and farm ISO there. New 4* characters would be available in normal mode (1 cover), hard (3 covers), and deadly (5 covers). Just like time slices, once you select a mode, you cannot play the other modes. However, if progression is set appropriately then grinding can either be diminished or done away with completely. And since scaling is set, players no longer will feel like they are being “punished for winning”. Admittedly, this switch to a full progression reward system determined by difficulty will cut off younger players from accessing higher rewards but it will establish a clear sense of progression. They could even monetize it if they wanted to buy requiring the use of HP to participate in more difficult nodes. (for example Hard 200 HP, Deadly 500HP)

What about alliance rewards? You may ask.
I believe there should be fourth tab for alliance-type events like Ultron and Galactus or something even better (hint: check out Contest of Champions alliance events). Just like DDQ, Story events should not include alliance rewards.

What about the Dark Avengers? Another good question.
In a perfect world, MPQ would have rolled with a tiered story system that provide different content at each difficult setting:

  • Easy: Maggia, Hammer soldiers, DA boss
    Normal: Maggia and Hammer soldiers, Dark Avengers, and 3 boss villain (or nerfed 4     new character)
    Hard: Dark Avengers, 3 buffed villains, Sentinel, Spider-Slayers, Skrulls etc, and 4* boss villain (or new 4* character)
    Deadly: Sentinels, Skrulls et al, 5 characters and special boss (new buffed 4* or 5* character)

Different modes would also have you facing different kinds of challenges and puzzles.

But obviously, the development team cannot scrap all the events they have made so for those kind of events, removing competitive ranking and instituting a flat scaled system will have to suffice.

I could expound further on the subject but I do believe my point has been made.

tl; dr: The game is fun but not without its flaws. Particularly that progression in this game has been largely tied to one’s ability to attain covers. Fight4thedream believes it would/could be more fruitful if the development team were to institute a clear tiered event system for both PvP and PvE because it would put the power of choice back into player’s hands and establish a more concrete sense of progression.

7

I voted fun.

If it is no longer fun, I would stop playing the game.

It is fun because there is something to look forward to in a daily basis, but at the same time, I can choose how involved I want to be.

I don’t need to grind for top 10 in the new characters pve. I don’t need to get top 5 in pvp. I play at a comfortable and sustainable pace, and getting the 25 CP for 1300 progression is good enough for me.

Having said that I can understand the frustrations that dedicated and competitive players have in this game. I felt that frustration before; I only felt better when I managed my expectations.

8

Day 785. I keep going back and forth on how I feel about it. On the one hand, I still like the match3 gameplay and powers, and playing around with different marvel characters, plus being on the phone I can fool with it anywhere. On the other, it takes considerable time investment to keep a sense of meaningful progression, which I feel like I should be spending elsewhere

Prior to championing and 5*s, I was in a somewhat complacent holding pattern, with all my fully cover
ed characters softcapped and no incentive to level up, while keeping more or less in pace with releases while being f2p. It was getting stale, to be sure.

But with the rebalancing of 3s, championing, increased release rate of 4s and addition of 5s, it’s a bit overwhelming, too much too close together. I’m lucky enough to already have my roster firmly established in 4 land and enough reserved iso to take advantage of the changes, but it’s impossible to maintain the sense of excitement with the iso bottleneck and progression for 4-5* mostly down to luck.

I’ve been stupidly lucky, I concede, I have no grounds for complaint about what I have got so far, but I can see the odds for the new 4* and 5*s in the tokens and the limited ways I can earn (a chance to get) them, and as someone who really likes collecting, I don’t fancy my chances of gettting, much less covering them, and that’s demoralising.

9

It’s still fun for me because I play at my own pace on my own schedule. I am in a great alliance that has the only requirement of scoring 4,000 points for the season and not to go more than 3 days inactive.

I work long hours and have a family, games should be relaxing and a way to unwind and for me being ultra competitive is not a way to relax.

10

I’m enjoying it

Saying that I’ve only been playing a week again after taking a year off as I was burned out

11

I voted ambivalent. I was having fun with slow progression - but RNG-only for both 4* covers and especially 5* covers have really sucked the fun out of progression for me - which was one part I (used to) enjoy.

As you keep playing, and see lots of incredibly overpowered 5*'s everywhere…but only one or two of them character-wise…the game has gotten very, very stale.

And that is PVP, where you get some variety! I gave up PVE long ago, you can only run (properly = grind) the same event so many times before burning out on it. The constant new character releases isn’t “fun” when you can’t get them, and most other recent changes were cosmetic at best (and downright game changing to yank up hardness and slow progression further at worst!)

12

I would not be playing if it wasn’t fun. But yes sometimes I get frustrated like when Venom bomb was chosen to introduce new character or with 3* nerf. But most of time I do enjoy playing.

13

As most people said, I still have found, If I wasnt I would not be playing. BUT I am afraid of the future. After last PvE test and all the scaling problems I am starting to see when I started leveling my 5s (which once again you are screwed if you do in PvE, you are screwed if you don’t do in PvP). Leveling your chars SHOULD ALWAYS HELP, it is the exact same problem we had when 2->3, and when 3->4.

And after playing again the DDQ for Reed vs Doom and the Venom event exactly as they were the first time they run them, it is easy to see that devs ignore our comments more than ever. We all said this Venom event is too difficult, those Carnage+goons are too unfair, and symbiotes do too many things, but devs decide to ignore us and don’t tweak the event, an this time, again for a new 4 release.

This is probably what is making me more afraid, devs completely ignoring their playerbase.

PS: I guess it also helps that now I am having a decent streak of pulling 5s out of LTs (around 13% in my last 50), if it was the opposite my answer would have probably been not a yes.

14

It IS fun, but I’m doing less than I used to. Now I just do PvE and DDQ instead of trying to do EVERYTHING. I miss out on rewards, but I’ve come to accept that. Knowing that there’s no feasible way in hell that I will ever achieve my goals is kind of cathartic, in a pathetic sort of way. So now I just enjoy the match 3 aspect of the game and play when I can, trying to hit progression, but not worrying much.

Even then, I take breaks every now and again.

15

I voted ambivalent. Basically I like the game in theory, but it always falls short of its potential because of tedious scaling and exceedingly few “game-changing” progression moments. I realize that those flaws are a direct result of aiming the game at whales, and that makes it hard to respect the devs as game designers. This puts me pretty continuously on the verge of quitting, despite the fact that I do actually like the gameplay.

16

Middle of the road. The gameplay can be fun, but the developers seem to have a problem constantly fixing what isn’t broken (the 3-star nerf, being the most recent example). It feels like the game takes a step forward (Championing) and then takes two steps back (Nerfing characters because they might be “too good”, like the 1-star Venom and Miles Spider-Man combo, or changing Deadpool Daily to make it harder, which just screws over newer players). As time goes on, it just feels harder and harder to get excited about the game. I used to play for hours every chance I had, but sometimes it just feels like a chore just even complete DDQ for the day.

17

No. The ONLY reason is the fact that the 4* tier IS the new 3* tier yet you have to work 3 times as hard as you did when there were the same number of 3*'s around sometime last year. Once they fix the rate of 4* obtainment, I’ll jump right back in. Until then, I can’t justify the waste of time.

18

I voted yes. I love the game. The pros still far outweigh any cons for me. If I weren’t enjoying the game, I wouldn’t be playing it.

If MPQ isn’t fun for you then please, for your own sake, stop playing. At the very least, take a little break. Come back after a few weeks and see if it feels better. Don’t hurt yourself mentally for a game.

19

I am currently deciding if I want to continue playing. I have been an avid player with most 4’s championed or at least fully covered and a mid 5 tier roster. The 5 star system is profoundly broken making progression very unreliable. In the last 40 pulls I have only received one 5 star and more cho’s, fantastics and falcaps then I care for .
With the profound jump in stats between 4 and 5 star characters I rarely can justify using a 4, and a 3 is usually out of the question (at least in pvp)
I am in a line chat room and many veteran players have recently been exiting the game.
Things the Dev must due:
Make 5 star progression reliable and for upper tier players. I now see 9 covered OML’s on rosters with not one fully covered 4, makes no sense. The pull for 5 star should be a vault system ensuring equal long term odds to players. Also 1 or 2 covers should be available a season at high level progression numbers (at least 15K plus seasonal).
Make rewards correspond to difficulty. May be time to split PVE and or PVP into beginner, med and expert levels with rewards reflecting increased challenge. A starting player with a 1 or 2 roster has vastly different ISO needs than a 4 and 5 star tiered player.
STOP charging 1K HP for new character slots. I think this annoys a lot of people and is a constant reminder how MPQ seems to cater to new players (slots cost very little) than veterans.
On pve make only four prizes. You get one random each time you play through, than nothing. I did like the recent change where rounds were worth the same amount each time you played so the player could play on their time and not have to wait for points to regenerate.
People have invested a lot of real money in 5 stars so a nerf is almost out of the question. I would suggest augmenting the boosts selected three and four star characters get. This will help level the field some.

20

I voted no. I’ve actually pretty much stopped playing for about a month now, and just checking back here occasionally to see if things improve. I had a two week block late February/Early March I couldn’t play due to other circumstances, and when I came back I just couldn’t get back in to it due to the grind. I have every 3 star and most of the 4s. I just wasn’t feeling any progress towards 4 stars anymore and go burnt out. I’ve done a couple DDQs and tried a couple events since I “quit” but haven’t played consistently. I’m probably about a week away from deleting the app and forgetting about it.