All this talk about the eventual “lights out” of the MPQ server, and a perpetual offline mode got me thinking about the intermittent network problems we currently face and if there is a way around that too…
It would be hard to secure (and probably all to quickly cracked) but a way they could move in a direction that would allow for offline play would be to allow for a “single device mode” where your player account is downloaded to the client and locally managed for short stretches of time. As long as your account is not in ‘single device’ you are able to move between devices and play. ‘Cloud’ mode requires a persistent connection. Entering ‘single device mode’ would be something you electively do before “getting on an airplane”, “going camping”, or anything else we do in our day-to-day existence where we know that the network connection is garbage.
While in ‘single device mode’ the App could periodically check for a network connection… (possibly with a ‘snooze’ feature on the check… just because I wandered close to a cell tower doesn’t mean I will stay close long enough to see a benefit at highway speed..) if it found one that was of adequate quality it could give you the option to sync progress to the server, and then either resume ‘cloud mode’ or stay in ‘single device’.
My thoughts on single device would look like this:
- In-App purchase could be optionally disabled… (The client is managing ISO and HP levels in this mode)
- alliance button would have to be grayed out.
- PVP would need to be grayed out. Only story mode would work. Only the active event + prologue are available.
- banding would not be available. You would only have base node values and the cooldown timers.
- placement rewards and leaderboard is tricky here, might be best to disable the leaderboard tabs when you are in ‘single-device’ mode.. similar to the reward preview you can see before entering an event.
- write to a local log file each fight/node that was completed. The fight log would have to include: time completed, boosts used, and character health levels for those involved, and the prize awarded
- the log should include information for any in-app purchases made if it is not disabled during ‘single-device’ (offline) mode
- the log should include events like covers being trained or ISO spent adding levels to characters
- the log should include boost purchases
- tokens could still be awarded, but they should be locked until you re-enter ‘cloud’ mode.
When the lights go out on MPQ forever the following changes could be enacted to go into permanent ‘single device mode’
- In-App purchasing would be completely removed in this mode (right?)
- alliance button would be dropped
- disable the polling logic to look for the server (won’t find one, don’t bother looking)
- stop recording the fight log information in a persistent cache since it won’t be uploaded
- checked out accounts would still be able to earn tokens, but they could not be opened. (reduce risk)
- leaderboard tabs would be completely removed from events… progression awards may be dropped as every PVE is now just a chapter in “story mode”
- unlock tokens and let a client-based RNG take over.
- PVE events would need to be converted to ‘story’ chapters. I will discuss this below
- PVP events could be re-enabled. I’ll discuss a possible avenue for this below as well
The sync from the ‘single-device’ client back to the cloud becomes the avenue to pollute game information. If we lock tokens, disable in-app purchasing, and keep a log of nodes being completed this should diminish the potential avenues for polluting data. I wouldn’t be able to revise my ISO, HP, or token totals in ways that weren’t supported by allowing the cloud server to replay the fight log. So I would be limited to corrupting data in ways that adjust the outcomes of fights completed:
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- optimize node complete times for maximum points
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- inject additional clears of nodes
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- adjust rewards so I am always getting the 250-ISO prize
The sync would replay the fight log on the server, so that the HP, ISO, boost, and token counts as well as character health levels were made current - and then redownloaded to the client if you elect to stay in ‘single device’ after the sync. The replay would reduce the ability to overly inflate your totals since everything would have to “smell” right to the validation logic running during the replay. (For example the replay should prevent me from “going negative” in my ISO total if I pollute the log to suggest I had levelled a character by spending ISO I hadn’t yet won.)
If I am in single-device mode and haven’t recently synced when a PVE sub ends, my alliance would not have the benefit of any accrued points that had not been synced.
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Permanent Offline for PVE:
There are 2 options:
1 - static. Each story becomes a chapter with 4 rewards. Play it and unlock it in order. When its done its done. Give us the ability to “reset” prizes for an event… or automatically reset them when every available prize is won. ‘Points’ are gone, as are progression awards. (placement is gone forever.)
2- dynamic. Each PVE story would become a ‘chapter-button’ on the event list. You would click on one to activate it. When it activated the game could give you the option to select what end time of day you want for the whole event as well as the desired duration for each sub in the story. So there would still be the timer and points. So progression prizes could be dynamically assigned. Progression prizes would be based on the length of the subs, but rules for these could be established. This would allow events to be repeatable. A ‘cooldown’ timer for the event could be added, so that I have to wait a week between runs of gauntlet (maybe?).
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Permanent Offline for PVP:
Offline PVP would be a strange animal. There would be no other players; you would need more seeds.
- a fleet of new seed teams to be introduced
- a segmentation strategy would be needed so that the seeds, based on their roster strength, could have different starting point values
- Can seed teams initiate attacks? That could be interesting.. but the pool of players is so small it would get weird. And how would a seed team resolve its offense?
- Shields are probably long gone? Depends on the mechanic.
- If we/they can’t devise a strategy for you to take reasonable defensive challenges then progression prizes seem unreasonable… or the prize tiers need to be adjusted - with no enemies taking chunks out of you it boils down to a question of how long you have to play. I would like to come up with a way for something like PVP to exist after the lights go out, but its tricky.
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There are also other modes that could be added now, while the lights are still on, that could transition and remain functional/available after the lights go out:
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DUEL
A local ‘head-to-head’ versus mode could be a SUPER AWESOME idea for a third tab across the top. This option could remove the AI player and allow 2 people to directly control each side of the battle. These battles could be single- or multiple- match fights. Your roster starts completely healed when the duel begins, and is restored to full health when its over… but damage would roll over between fights if you are doing multiple matches. Prizes for this could be anything from ‘bragging rights’ to team-ups… where the victor gets one and the loser doesn’t…
The rules of engagement should be set prior to the match starting, probably prior to the challenger accepting the fight. Rules would include:
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- how many matches the fight would include
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- roster restrictions (1* only, 3* or lower, 6* total, villains, unlimited)
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- buffed character classes, if any: (villains, avengers, 2s)
Available rule sets could include any existing PVP format as a start, but could allow for customization… (For example, something like Combined Arms, but where you can have 6 total, rather than the forced 1 each 1*, 2*, 3*)
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- Fights could optionally allow for overloads and imbalances… (a 4* cap match could allow one player to run Fury, and the other team could match up with OBW+Ares, or Ares+Venom+Juggs)
One player sets themselves up as the ‘host’. They can define the fight parameters and open it up for challenges. Other players search for ‘hosts’ on the LAN and they pick from the available set of hosts based on their desired match difficulty.
This play mode could remain intact and running after the lights go out on the main servers.
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SURVIVAL
There should be a tab at the top that lets me initiate an on-demand survival node matchup. The dynamic element of this single-node tab would be awesome.
When I start a survival match I can pick:
- from a preset number of enemy difficulty bands
- the number of waves of enemies I want to face
- the number of enemies per wave
- If the waves can include ‘active’ opponents rather than goons (and if so - how many)
- from a ‘category’ of enemies (SHIELD, HAMMER, MAGGIA, HAND, or free-for-all)
prizes would have to be restricted to ISO.. they would have to be pretty crummy low since I can fire this off on-demand… but they should be benchmarked against the total number of enemies fought and their average difficulty rating.
Since this is a single node simulator initiated on-demand by the user it should also be able to remain running after ‘lights out’.
While the “lights stay on”; the Survival tab could include “challenge” prizes that rotate every day or every week. Things like:
- Win a 3-wave match using only 1*s
- Win 5 ‘Maggia’ survival nodes
- Win a survival node without using an active ability
- Win a match without making a critical tile
- Win using a ‘Black Widow’ character
Each ‘challenge’ completed could award a trivial (100ISO) prize.
Come to think of it.. I should peel a few of these off to be separate suggestions.
