Marvel Puzzle Quest R348 Release Notes
Notes:
The big new drop this release is Alliance V Alliance! There’s a summary below, but Jeto will also be putting up a separate post with the details of what’s changed since the original AvA blog was posted.
We would like to thank all of the players in the Beta who gave us feedback on the system. We have recorded a lot of feedback from them on continued improvements, and could not appreciate them more for their contributions and amazing, thoughtful attitudes. 
We’re hoping for AvA to provide something truly new to MPQ that we can continue to build on, and it would not have been possible without them.
New Feature: Alliance V Alliance
Alliance v Alliance is a new game mode where Alliances are matched against each other to battle for control of territory. Alliances will be required to work as teams in order to defend their territory and attack their opponents possessions!
The first Alliance v Alliance Operation begins Thursday UTC
You can find a full breakdown of AvA in either our Alliance V Alliance forum post or in the Alliance V Alliance (AvA) section of the MPQ Support page.
AvA runs as a 6-week Operation
An Opt-In phase where any Alliance Commanders can sign their Alliance up to AvA
8 matches (Offensives) where Alliances are matched up against each other
A Blessing Phase where the top-ranked Alliance can choose conditions to be placed on the next Operation
A Cool-Down Phase before the next Operation begins
At the core of AvA is the fight for territory during the Offensives (matches), consisting of 3 rounds of:
A 12hr Mobilisation (Defense) Phase where defenses are set up
A 24hr Engagement (Attack) Phase where you can attack your opponent’s defenses
Each Alliance begins an Offensive with control of 5 Fronts (hexagonal tiles) with 1 (the 11th Front) remaining locked
Each Front has a star rating telling you the highest rarity character that can either attack or defend in that Front
Inside each Front are 5 Objectives (map pins/nodes). All 5 nodes must be taken in order to take control of the Front
During the Mobilisation (Defense) Phase, Alliances place up to 9-characters on each Objective they control
- These 9 characters become a 3-wave battle that the enemy team must defeat during the Engagement (Attack) Phase
At the beginning of the 3rd Mobilisation (Defense) Phase, whichever Alliance is currently winning in the Offensive (match) will be given control of the 11th Front
Characters have a limit on how many Objectives they can defend at once. This is called “Resolve.”
Each Objective a character defends costs 1 Resolve
If a character runs out of Resolve, Hero Points can be used to purchase additional Resolve
Resolve resets back to the base (currently 3 for each character) at the end of every Offensive (Match)
Players have a limit on the number of Attacks they can make. This is called “Morale.”
Every player has a limit of 3 Morale
Each time a player enters combat to attempt to take an Objective, it costs 1 Morale
Morale restores over time
Scoring & Rewards
Alliances are scored based on:
Attacking
Defending
Taking and holding onto control of Fronts
Surviving defenders
Morale that wasn’t used
Personal Rewards (Engagement Rewards) are given at the end of each Engagement and each player receives:
ISO-8 per Morale spent in Attacks
Red ISO-8 per Resolve spent in Defense (across all characters assigned)
Additional rewards based on which Fronts are controlled by your Alliance
Alliance Rewards (Operation Rewards) are given at the end of each Operation (Season).
The top ranked Alliance receives the Winner’s Costume
Commanders in the top-ranked Alliance can choose the Blessing for the next Season
Alliances receive other rewards based on their Tier placement
Quandry’s Blessing (or Operational Condition) is the buff or restriction placed on an Affiliation for the duration of an Operation and is chosen by the top-ranked Alliance.
Short-Term AvA QOLs:
Here is a bit of an idea of the continued work we are intending to do on AvA in the coming updates:
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Activity logs for Alliances and Alliance Commanders
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Continued improvements to help menus
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Continued improvements to information display
Over a longer term, we want to make more improvements to Alliances and Alliance chat in general, however this will be more challenging due to the way the infrastructure for it is currently set up so it will take time.
Quality of Life
UI
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Added your currency balances to the purchase confirmation pop up throughout the game
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Currency balances are now localized with separators when > 10,000
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When attempting to start the game when not connected to the internet, help text will be displayed about the issue
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Rewards for missions are now centered instead of left aligned
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Rewards for missions if they are all shown on screen are no longer scrollable
Bug Fixes
In addition to the fixes listed below, we have added additional logging in the backend to give us more information to track down the root causes of issues such as the saved game resets.
Gameplay & Heroes
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Team Select screen
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Characters no longer disappear when selecting a filter after opening Saved Teams
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Descended characters no longer spawn duplicates when sorting after opening Saved Teams
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Selected ascended or descended characters no longer switch out with other random characters
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Completing a wave node battle in Heroic mode no longer restarts the battle
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Completing a battle then earning ISO-8 as a Daily Resupply reward no longer softlocks the game
UI
- Fixed an issue where the Player XP Notification would appear for a single frame
Performance
- Fixed possible save game issues due to internet disconnections and race conditions
348 Known Issues
- Wave node battles in Heroic mode do complete now, but they still may skip the outro cutscene.
347 Character Bug Fixes
Note: The following were all fixed during the live release of 347 via data patches and are summarized below
Hero Fixes:
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Deadpool (Devpool)'s “All Affiliations” now functions as intended
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Support functionality restored for Supports equipped to 6-Star characters (Low Level AI, Leapfrog, Omnipotence City)