Made the game boring...

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
1

So I have been effectively soft-capping my roster while I got all my 3* championed. So keeping those 4* with full covers at levels where my boosted 3* were my primary teams.

But then I managed to get enough ISO to Champ Iceman… and after a quick forum post, where the over-whelming response was do-it, I took the plunge. He was also boosted that week, and I cruised through the PVE and even got the 1000 point in a PVP.

Then I got up to another 300K of ISO and it was possible to champ another one… this time I did Thoress.

After the grandfather ISO for Shield Rank kicked in, another 4 4* got the Champion treatment… Winter Soldier, Jean Grey, X-23 and Cyclops…

But now, PVE scaling means that I am pretty much locked in to using them most events… and now instead of 2 or 3 teams I used in Simulator I have to use Iron-man and then 2 of my limited 4*

And frankly I have made the game dull…

There was some fun using a boosted Punisher alongside Ironman and Iceman… and quicksilver with Kamala Khan and Winter Soldier is amusing… and I am sure there are solid options around the X-23… but scaling now means I have the same go to teams for every event, or I gamble on an alternate line-up and get battered…

and Ive steadfastly avoided 5*, I only have an OML with 2 yellow covers…who I mainly use alongside X-23 and either XFDP or Nova for easy nodes…

Mainly because once you go down that path, that’s the only guys you get to use.

I love using different characters, but when a Boosted Championed Blade gets eaten in quick order when the enemy levels are close to on parity with yours then using him is a gamble.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

as I really now wish I had just levelled lots of 4* up to circa level 190/200 to keep them in line with my 3* champs

2

It happens every time you transition to a new tier. I maxed my OML last week, and now I use him all the time. Fortunately I was using him almost all the time Before then too. icon_lol.gif
Work with what you have got and widen your roster and things will get more fun again. Until you are ready to move on to fivestars, that is…

3

That’s right.

I am not in 4* land yet. I just maxed Human Torch and Ironfist + I have like 5 others close to be maxed (missing 1-2 covers). Recently HT was boosted in PvP. Since then I can only find 5* teams in PvP (you know those 2-3 covered softcapped 5*)… not only it is boring, but annoying.

4

It is even worse in 5 land, because it is even harder to max the other 5s (outside of the three originals). So it is OML+PH everywhere, ALL THE TIME. And I doubt I will be able to max GG or Spidey anytime soon (I might need 6 or 7 months or more)

Devs should implement a system in PvE were difficulty adapts to the team you chose for the node (I am sure all node difficulty is already relative to your max 3). You could even see the levels before you start playing. That would help a lot, and make 4s and 3s viable again. (And this would be very easy to implement).

5

This is exactly why I’ve taken my fully covered 4s to level 200, and refuse to take them further until the 3s catch up with their champion levels. I love using different teams and dont want to be tied into only using the 5 4*s I currently have max covered.

6

Is anyone not? 5*s killed any pretense of roster diversity.

7

I guess I’m too far removed from the 4* transition, but I don’t see the problem here. Boosted 3s are generally in the 255-270 level range, right? So that should put them right up there with your level 270 4s. So you can use any of your 4s with the boosted 3s if you want. Ok, if a 4* is boosted, then you pretty much have to use him for everything, but why wouldn’t you?

Yes, you can’t use unboosted 3s anymore. But here’s a secret: unboosted 3s suck. Now that you have champed 4s, the only unboosted 3s you’ll ever use are Fist, SWitch and IM40. So get some more 4*s up there and you’ll have variety again.

8

That sounds like a really fun group of champed 4s to me. Just keep adding more to the list and I think you will find play at the 4 level every bit as enjoyable as it was for you at the 3* level. And don’t think of your 3s as useless. I paired a boosted Rulk with 3 Thor and SWitch last week and had a lot of fun playing that team - even against level 400+ teams.

9

Exactly. This entire week, the only non-essential characters I’ve used have been OML, Surfer, Black-Suit Spidey and Rulk.

10

I would say…Sort of not? Scaling in PvE is certainly reliant on OML to save health packs, but I can usually use any of my champ 4* with him. This week PvE is basically all Switch-RHulk, with the 3rd being mostly irrelevant. The week with 4Cyc-Thing boosted not too long ago saw me using both of them instead of OML for PvP too.

My OML is only at 375, which helps. I’m not bringing him higher than 390, or any of my other 5* until I have 4-5 ready, and I don’t particularly care how long that takes given this exact diversity problem. I don’t want to pigeon hole my roster.

For the OP: 6 characters may not feel diverse when you’re coming out of a tier with 40, but that’s a considerably better start than most do with their transition, and you have the best ones to pair with IM40 (4Thor, Iceman), which should at least make things easy. Hang in there, you’ll be able to widen the roster out before you know it.

11

Really?

First 4 clears you can pretty much use anyone. I even use my 2* during first 4 clears. Yeah at clear 5 the harder nodes will need your a team once the difficulty maxed…but isn’t that what is supposed to happen ?

Name me 1 video game in history whereby the further you progress the easier it gets?

What you mean to say OP is now you’ve got a few 4* champs the 3* ones aren’t quite so shiny and therefore you use them far less. Do you have the option to use them? Of course , see details above.

12

This seems right. When I went to 3*, I was bored because I was using the same team repeatedly, but then my others caught up. When I got to 4*, using Jeanbuster all the time got dull, but they earned me the ISO to bring up a more diverse roster. I don’t claim to speak for everyone’s experience, but I think that excitement-tedium-advancement period is part of transitioning.

13

Um, pretty much everything outside of arcade style games? Any game with incremental and directed progression is basically designed around allowing the player to develop advantages to make the basic game play easier, and that’s where most of the fun comes in.

14

Sounds like you have scaling that isn’t relevant to this discussion. My first 4 clears go from lv250s to lv350s. It’d be stupid to try to use 3s against those, much less 2s…

15

I agree and disagree with this statement. Good video games maintain a challenging user experience throughout the game - often concluding in a very challenging boss battle of sorts. Progress through the game makes completing prior tasks much easier, and “unlocks” more challenging areas or modes of game play. Consider an open-world RPG or something like Diablo. When you start you are limited to a certain area simply by difficulty. You can wander outside your area but you die quickly because you aren’t strong enough. So you spend more time in your current area, level up, and once you are strong enough you can progress to a new area and unlock more stuff that makes you more competitive overall.

MPQ is similar in that progressing makes you stronger, and makes the things that you were doing previously much easier. Where MPQ fails is in maintaining a challenging experience through content. To keep the game challenging MPQ uses scaling, which is OK, because otherwise the game would become stale otherwise, but it fails to deliver better rewards for completing more challenging tasks…which people have been complaining about for a long time now, and seems to be being addressed by the coming SHIELD Clearance levels.

16

I agree with your post, especially the first paragraph.

Take a Pokémon game for example: you travel around and each new area has trainers with more challenging pokémon. Each gym leader has considerably higher levels than the last one. However, the difficulty does not increase or decrease in a linear fashion. Some people may have more difficulties in the early game, others in the late game, it all depends on how well-prepared you are to face each challenge. But interestingly, in a pokémon game, you can actually return to early areas and crush everything in your path, squashing level 5 Caterpies with your level 80 Dragonites or something. That’s the difference with MPQ: in MPQ, you cannot go back and crush the same nodes that were difficult to you in the past. They just get harder. And the rewards are the same. There are only a few exceptions: one example that comes to mind is the DDQ.

17

The issue for me is that characters that you’ve spent time and iso on become irrelevant. Pokemon doesn’t make you sell your Charizard when you catch a Solgaleo. You evolve him and he becomes as strong as the Legendary Pokemon.

MPQ (despite championing) caps your original roster and then they become worthless. Except for the fact D3 makes you keep them for essentials. But other than that, they don’t bring much to the table next to your 3*, 4*, and definitely your 5* roster.

18

Let’s see, I am going to name a few. New Doom (once you get the super shotgun and the gauss you can kill anything), Crysis, Skyrim, Zelda, Dark Souls (at least until you go to NG+), and probably every Action RPG in the world. In almost all games where you start upgrading your level and life, armor/weapons, and your powers the game becomes much easier (and much fun because you have a lot of different ways of dealing with your enemies). Some of the bosses might be harder, but normal enemies are much easier to kill than when you start.

PS: I fucking love the new Doom, man, I am having so much fun. Best first person shoter since HL2. And of course, it needs to be played at the highest difficulty level.

19

So for maximum fun you adjust the game to have maximum enemy scaling?

Interesting.

20

I’m nowhere near the endgame scenario where the majority of you are, but I can feel the same sentiments as the original poster.

I have champed 2s and a mix of single covers for 3s and 4*s. With over 30 characters in my roster, I’m very disappointed that I HAVE to use the same 3 in order to push through PVE events. When they expire and run out of health packs, I resort to the B team with mixed success.

This game doesn’t have a mode where you can have fun with the weaker characters that you covered just for fun. PVE scales up so fast. PVP is a deadly wasteland of the same 5 characters lead by 5*s I can’t even begin to scratch with my Lvl 100 team.

I can’t imagine the grind people do with re-levelling 2*/3* all over and selling them, never using them again now that they’ve gone to 4*/5* end game.

I would love roster based scaling instead of collection based… :confused: