My unpopular opinion-- MPQ is better than ever

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Since the introduction of ‘true healing’, I’ve seen a lot of complaints about how this change will screw over the people trying to transition from 2* to 3*. Many feel that there’s no viable alternative to OBW, and making her weaker will just make it harder for everyone without an already loaded roster.

I just want to comment that I feel the exact opposite way. In fact, lately I’ve been finding that it’s easier than ever before to earn 3 star covers. The big reason for this has nothing to do with true healing, but rather with the not-so-much-discussed change where you only need to finish in the top 100 to get a cover, rather than the top 50. For me, this makes a pretty huge difference, because I quite often finish in that 50-100 range.

As to the idea that there aren’t any good alternatives to OBW, I also disagree with that. For example, I’ve had success running 2* Daken with Modern Hawkeye (Hawkeye hides behind Daken, who regenerates), and Bullseye with 2* Wolverine (team Adamantium). Bullseye’s black is extremely underappreciated. If you can make a match 5 with purple or black you can do significant damage, plus you get an extra turn (which, if you think about it, is functionally the same as stunning the entire enemy team for 1 turn a la symbiote snare). Sure, I realize these characters aren’t as useful as OBW, but you can still win matches with them pretty easily. I regularly take down Ares/Thor+OBW+guest teams with the teams I just mentioned.

Some people might counter that even if you can win on offense, OBW is much better on defense than the 2* alternatives. That may be true. But honestly I haven’t noticed much difference in how often I get attacked when I’m running a team with OBW as opposed to one of the lesser-used characters. Furthermore, my Daken-Hawkeye-Black Widow (Gray suit) team has actually been winning quite a bit on defense in the Hollowpoint Kiss event. Speaking of, I absolutely love that event because you can’t use OBW - it’s so refreshing to get a break from facing her constantly! I only mention that because if fewer people use OBW as a result of the true healing change, I think the game will really open up.

In another thread, I said that I liked the true healing change and predicted it would increase roster diversity, and my post was quickly hidden due to a bunch of downvotes, cratering my reputation score. So I realize I may be in the minority here. I’m honestly not trying to troll or start a fight with those who have a strong opinion in the other direction. But if you’re thinking of quitting due to recent changes, I urge you to wait a little while and trying adapting your style of play before you pull an EmeryT and sell everything in a fit of rage.

TLDR; true healing doesn’t ruin the game, and might just improve it.

2

I do think the changes will improve the quality of gameplay. My worry is that these changes functionally put a limit on how much you can play. Maybe this will be a good thing also. Maybe this will make the end of a pvp event that much more sane that everyone’s rosters are hurt at the very end and the zombie horde’s bite will be that much less scary. Or more people will try that final match for placement with a half health team and there will be that many more defensive victories.

There are many maybes in the future of MPQ. I for one want to see how it plays out. Worst thing would be for the devs to make a change like this and adjust nothing else because of the new meta. The improvements to regeneration is a step but my opinion is keep the heal nerf in, make even more increases to regeneration rate so someone with a decent roster can rotate through several teams and still play as much as they want but never feel like they have hit the wall where the game itself has decided their time playing is done (come back in a few hours, for more fun! it will only be 1 in the morning and the tourney will be over but everyone will be healed up then, yaaaaayy! /sarcasm off)

3

Something most people seem to over look is that if you can’t heal, then no one else can either. I know that is not what some people are upset about. But it’s not all bad.

IMHO, it makes the game more even for everyone.

JJ

4

Eh. I think it’s better since season 2 started, but not the best it’s ever been. Off the top of my head, I think I’d consider the golden age of MPQ to be around after the Thor/Wolverine nerf and before the obw saturation. Maybe even before that nerf.

The problem with OP characters like Rags, Thor, Wolvie, OBW, etc is that D3 likes to wait until everyone has and uses them before nerfing them. Why can’t they react sooner? I mean the Spidey nerf took like 6 months.

5

Yep, the nerfs could definitely come sooner.

That said, the healing nerf decision was probably affected by other game changes that were pretty new, like the new PVE refresh system, PVP sharding, new MMR, and the alliance metagame.

Spidey was pretty broken for PVE for a while, but one possible reason for delaying that nerf for sooooo long is that they were tweaking the PVE scaling algorithm (not very effectively) for a while.

6

After playing for nearly 6 months, I definitely feel like the game has improved over time. There’s still some annoying things, and improvements could be made, but they’ve made more positive moves than negative ones.
I’m not sure if they went about this the best way, but if people feel like they have to use a specific character all the time to compete, something does need to be changed.

7

Uh, you’re right, except being totally wrong… The change is good for some and terrible for others, The benefit population is obviously those already having the characters with huge benefit (regenerators, fast killers, scary stuff).

But more importantly those who play spread out through good part of the day.

While hoses those who played in a few 1-2 hour sessions.

How many health packs get created in 24h? 40? If the pack cap was this 40, you’d be right, maybe. But it is far from there, puny 5. One who plays 15m every 3 hours can use all 40. One who plays 1 hour in the morning and evening can use 14. And who plays 2 hours after work only 9. The first kind was already granted huge benefit for PVE lately, now it extends to play in general.

That is your even field. Way more even for some players.

8

It’s true that anyone who can play two 1-hour sessions spread out has an advantage over someone who can only play one 2-hour session.

Why should it be any different? Tournaments have end times. Someone who can play only the last hour has an advantage over someone who can play the first three hours of the tournament. Someone in Farmville who can harvest their crops twice a day have an advantage over someone who can only harvest once. This is true for any game that uses real world timers.

Honestly, someone who logs in twice shows me they’re more committed than someone who logs on once, and I think they SHOULD do better. Usually, the person who logs on twice for 1-hour COULD log on for 2-hour chunks, but they strategically decide to spread it out. Or even better, they log on for the same 2-hour session at night PLUS an earlier 1-hour session on their lunch break.

Even field? Some people can install Steam on their work computers and play. Is that uneven with someone who can’t? Someone could bring their laptop to work. Heck, some people can sit there and play DURING work because they can get away with it. There’s ALWAYS going to be some people who have real world advantages over others.

Some people sacrifice sleep to place better, some sacrifice time with their family, some sacrifice money to the almighty HP gods. If someone wants to wake up every 2 hr 24 min, frankly, they SHOULD place better than me. (Along with everyone who’s shunned their significant others for the sake of a game. icon_lol.gif
)

9

It’s a phone game with a silly energy mechanic. They don’t want you playing all the time.

10

“Silly steam player, go play something else.”

That seems to be the message I’m getting from the last couple of tweaks.

11

And I think that should be their 1st priority, not to nerf or buff anyone , not new content or new char,
but to link steam and mobile device before more people rage quit

12

I concur. I was ready to quit two months ago. with the changes to iso, HP, covers, scaling, etc. I’m back to actually having fun.

if they can ever nail down mmr and a fairer system for our euro alliance players, there won’t be much to complain about.

13

That made me chuckle…

DEMIURGE_WILL stops by to thumb up this post…but ignores all the negative ones icon_lol.gif
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14

Agreed.

I’m having more fun with the game since this change has taken effect. I can only speak on behalf of someone who has an established 3* roster at the time of the change though. I have Punisher, Thor, Hood, Psylocke, Spidey, Black Panther and Doom all maxed out and I’m working on others slowly but surely. From my perspective…I love that don’t ‘feel’ forced to play OBW+Hood+Thor for every possible match. The new system allows me to employ more thought and tactics in the game.

Which characters do I use to pull out the victory in order to maximize my play time and minimize my health pack usage?

It’s not just about facerolling for 6+ hours with a single powerful combo. At least…not as much cough Mags/Patch cough I believe the game is better than ever…but that doesn’t mean it’s finished. I look forward to seeing what future changes are made and hoping that they continue to improve the game play as a whole.

15

Still doesn’t help anyone that cannot sneak away to play during the day.

There’s just one thing the devs need to do; expand the amount of gifted health packs to 20 or so and put them on a 24hr regen cycle.
Either you play intermittent bursts over the day and use them up bit by bit, or you play one big sweep in the evenings and use them all at once. Fair to everyone.

Bam. Problem fixed.

16

I agree. And I’m really enjoying playing diverse teams in PvP due to True Healing. It’s definitely working!

I think the Devs could have handled True Healing differently, but they got one thing right: OBW was being used just to be exploited. If I were to complain about anything, it would be that D3 is too slow to remove such exploits.

MPQ is better than ever. If they want to make it even better, then they need to do the hard work of improving the underused characters, particularly if they want us to level our entire roster.

17

In the last few pvps, I’ve been placing better than average because while I’m still in 2* land, I’ve found that when I’m done grinding a few points out, if I leave a defensive team of Thor and Ares, people are far less likely to attack, due to the inevitable damage their team will take.

18

This has been a fantastical change. I saw at least three teams in PVP running lvl 77-86 Invisible woman’s, a 56 Devil Dino and a lvl 30 Unicorn.
MPQ is better than ever.

19

It’s a rather scathing indictment upon the state of the game and community that the op acknowledges saying “MPQ is better than ever” would be construed as an unpopular opinion.

The overwhelming negativity that pervades at this time does not bode well for the future.

20

I just still fail to see how this change is relevant to what you write, what stopped you all the time to employ more thought, to use tactics or to use different teams.