Not with a bang but with a whimper. A poll on burnout in MPQ.

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Long time lurker, occasional poster here.
I’ll preface this by saying that this is definitely not a quitting thread. I don’t intend to quit this game, and still find some enjoyment in in. That said, over the last few months, my interest has waned a fair bit. I’ve gone from daily player 130% PVE, ~4-6K PVP (years ago 11-12K PVP) to barely having the will to do DDQ on the daily. It could be a combination of life happens, lack of time, and other external factors, but I think that at least one part of that is the burnout I’ve experienced.

Being currently on day 2515 (started just before 1st anniversary), I’ve seen this game develop tremendously over the years, starting way back when 2* Wolverine was a BEAST, and the 4* tier didn’t exist. Watching XML and OML come in and demolish team after team, and watching the 5* tier go from unattainable god-tier to a regularly given out reward (thanks devs!). That said, one thing that’s bugged me personally has been the slow progression for even the most fervent and dedicated daily players. What has hampered me the most in recent months, however, has been the trickle of resources which feel ever so difficult to attain. I’ve come to a point where the resources received don’t really justify the time put in nor bring any great reward. Now, you can certainly point out that we can all decide how much we want to play, and that’s a fair argument. We’ve all been at points of burnout at one time or another. But for me, I’m finding that the game is slowly boring me to the point where I haven’t quit, but simply am not interested, nor remember, to play daily any more. In other words, for me, this game is slowly dying, going out with a whimper, and not a bang.

I am wondering how many others are at the same point, and what it is that’s a struggle for you. I’ve added a few ideas/options in the poll below, but feel free to add your own.

As to what I feel could or needs to be fixed, I’ll throw out the following:

ISO issues

I think that this is a problem for many, that can be fixed with simple bonuses that help players attain additional ISO. I propose adding one or more of the following:

  • 2x ISO at baseline for everyone one a month, perhaps on holiday events

  • ISO scaling - played 1000 days? You now have 1.5x ISO at baseline, 2000 days? You get 2x ISO all the time, 3K days? 3x ISO. I don’t think that this would be game breaking, as most players at that level need the ISO to keep going

  • ISO boosts - same as normal boost, can be earned in game, and you can choose when to use to get 2x ISO. Max of 1 boost per match.
    Balance

  • twice yearly rebalance for old characters to keep them relevant. Mild increases in health/match damage for characters that have been around for a while who have been made obsolete by power creep
    Life balance

  • heavy decrease on number of rounds needed for higher tier. Perhaps introduction of SCL 11 (I think we’re overdue) with only 2 matches needed to complete the 100% PVEs

  • reduce # of wins needed to achieve the various PVP rewards, perhaps by 1/4 or 1/3
    Roster spots

  • perhaps make dupes not cost a roster slot?

  • reduce $ of roster slots
    DDQ

  • introduce a 4* daily (long overdue)

  • single super difficult node where it completes all the DDQ rewards (so it’s not a daily slog). Really, do you think a 5* player won’t be able to complete these?

  • scaled rewards
    Daily gift

  • no more standard tokens - give out solely elite and above
    Other ideas… feel free to add

TL:DR
Game needs fixes. Some of us are burning out. Ideas on how to adapt/fix the game have been around for years.

POLL: Where are you at in terms of your willingness to play/burnout?

Not with a bang but with a whimper. A poll on burnout in MPQ.
  • The game is amazing, and OP is a complainer/quitter. Please leave and stop making these threads.
  • The game is good. I am happy with where things are at.
  • I can see some problems, but still play regularly. I am happy with most things in the game.
  • There are a number of problems, but I deal with them.
  • I am getting tired. The game has become a slog. Still playing.
  • I’m burning out. I’ve reduced my game time. Still playing.
  • I’m done. I quit. It’s too much. Not playing or playing very irregularly.
  • Other…(please elaborate)
0 voters
2

I agree with much of what you said, but D3 needs financial motivation for some of these changes that we want to see. I’ll give you an example on how they might do that for something that comes up regularly.

Personalized Tokens
Pool: Classics & Latest 4/5 stars with 3 random 5-stars
Cost: 30 CP
Reset: Weekly, or with 1000 HP

The numbers are likely to change, but people would spend on it for a chance to have a store with the 5-stars they’re chasing.

As a commander, I’d like to be able to set a minimum shield rank to join my alliance. I’m constantly kicking 2-star rosters when I have an opening. An alliance description would also be handy so applicants could see requirements/expectations before they join.

I do feel like the game has been on cruise control for a while. We’ve seen some quality of life changes, but not much in core game or content updates. Rewards really need to be restructured in several areas. Exciting things that get introduced don’t get much follow-up attention. The current pace of 5-star releases makes it really difficult to keep up, especially if you’re trying to champion classics.

3

I feel like if anyone is burning out on any activity, it’s time to reevaluate that activity. There is no shame in quitting something that’s totally optional in life, like a game or hobby.

At some point, the game is what it is. People have been asking for certain changes for years and they haven’t happened. People need to accept that they’re just not going to happen, stop waiting for a game that will never exist, and make a decision for themselves about the game that does exist.

When I started burning out on MPQ years ago, I adjusted what I did in the game to get to a point where I still enjoyed playing all of it. If, at any time, I couldn’t find that point, I’d immediately quit with zero regrets. I have a job and a lot of other activities that are mandatory – I don’t need to take on additional obligations that don’t add fun to my life.

4

I’m sorry but the entire list (with one exception) can be broken down to “I want to play much less and earn way more”.

Would I like more rewards? Sure ill happily take them, but that’s not what is going to stop burnout. Ask people at the tippy top who have all the meta at 550 and they might be even more burnt out than the folks grinding away in 3* land.

The only thing on your list that would improve the game for me is rebalances. That’s one of my favorite things. I love when oldies get a boost.

Massively increasing the boost limit (why is it capped at 10??) and allowing us to unlock more saved team slots for HP are the kinds of quality of life things that would move the needle for me over just more rewards for less work. Weekly boosted 5*s were the biggest quality of life improvement for me in a long time. Before that, probably saved teams. Actually, I’ll add Shang-Chi to the list because he’s just THAT fun.

5

Yes, there are some minor issues and it is a slog occasionally, but I’m fairly happy with the game. My play has decreased due to life. Between work and family, I play a little less. Will my play increase at a later date? Probably so, but for now I’m content. We all have priorities and I’m certain MPQ is not at the top of the list for any of us.

6

You can’t “win” MPQ. Play until you don’t enjoy it anymore and then quit. This is what I plan to do.

7

You need to discover your goals and what makes you enjoy MPQ. For example, I’m in a position when I enjoy creating teams with synergies, challenge myself to find different teams to counter meta teams and play for speed in pves and pick-2 pvps. That’s probably why I look forward to new characters. Getting more rewards has never been a priority for me.

If you are feeling burnout, take a few days, weeks, months or years of break and you might feel fresher. I’ve seen quite a number of players who left the game for a period of time and they felt much better. If I barely have the will to even play DDQ, I would call it quit. You’re probably suffering from the effect of sunk costs (years of playing MPQ) and that’s why you’re still playing. Look at MPQ from a new lens and it might help things better.

8

I play way, waaaaay less than I used to, for sure.

Lots of reasons why. PVE was always a slog - and now so many math nerds have the math down so exactly…I don’t want to time my life to daily timers to a match-3, thanks no thanks.

PVP godboost has made matches a slog practically every event, every match. I get that a certain subset (I see Daredevil there) like them. Many do not. They’ve essentially eliminated all the lower tiers: all you have to do is have everything at 450 and every week you have tons of 550 options, presto! I’m sure you put tons of work and thought into getting there, just like anyone who worked on 550’s before…oh wait.

Many predicted this slog (I was out there shouting it from the rooftop, all 550 every match coming up)…but then that’s another problem right there. Solutions are ignored, and not listened to. And problems therefore just compound and continue. Oh wait, that was the same in 2018 and here we are with the dam bursting.

Is it any wonder that people will take shortcuts to make their playtime faster and more efficient. And why not, if those shortcuts never have permanent repercussions.

9

I can’t even play without the boosts now. I pretty much just skip unboosted events because they’re an endless wall of 550 SW/Colossus/some other defensive nonsense and every fight takes half an hour.

It turns out that 5* PvP, and the dominance of “meta” teams, was awful all along and there was a really easy fix for it the whole time.

During boosted events, it’s still basically an endless wall of 550 SW/Colossus, except I can now beat those teams trivially with, like, a lvl675 Surfer/Daredevil combo or something similarly ridiculous/stupid.

I realize no one actually has a 550 Surfer/Daredevil combo. Most people at my tier have 1-3 meta characters fully maxed out, and everyone else is at like 452.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about MPQ over the years, it’s that going all in is a terrible idea. It used to be a terrible idea because they’d inevitably destroy anyone good with a nerf.

Now it’s a bad idea because the best character in the game changes every week. People optimized their rosters based on one particular game state that they thought would last forever, and then it changed.

10

They’ve addressed a whole lot of the problems I saw coming up, not always to my liking or in the most ideal way, but they’ve taken a stab at it so I have to give credit… among those were:
accessibility to high-tier supports, now we have puzzle gauntlet.

Transition to 5* was rough and now we have milestone rewards to allow more space in decision-making and an actual ramping up of rewards based on progress.

Feeders were incomplete and though I think they’ve maybe forgotten Havok exists, all new characters feed.

The next issues I see are these:
Even sane full rosters will be hitting the 2k per slot price soon, either player HP income needs to increase or the arbitrary roster limit should.
Potential ISO-debt increases for every character added to the game while earnings don’t. I’d make 2x permanent. Old players already have a vast surplus.

Classic Legends draws are too wide to be of any use, there’s a handful of ways to tackle this. Drop the price to 15 and do nothing else. Run more legends stores. Enforce some sort of rotation in new character features (the thematic stores are fun but you guys keep running to the same well over and over).
PVP MMR is a joke. Smaller rosters shouldn’t be getting bashed by 550+ characters in the process of grabbing a paltry 4* cover and ideally should be able to fight their way to full progression with minimal shielding. Shield economy is where the big boys aiming for 2k+ play.

11

Right, I like it, but also recognize that I’m in a privileged position. I have every 5* (sans the latest 3) between 450 and 478 (mean of 458). So I don’t have any one character skewing my MMR and pretty much all of my 5* are playable. This to me is the ideal place to be for variety and fun each week.

If I went all in to 550 metas I’d win way more but probably burn out quicker. Like Hound said, each person needs to find their “fun”.

12

Captain MPQ Quitter here……that’s me. I love the changes they’ve made to the game over the years, but it’s still not perfect. I’ve gotten burned out 5 times previously and thought I quit for good. It’s a fun game of improving your roster each week, finding new combos and counter-combos, but if anyone playing this game isn’t having fun anymore, then just quit. There’s no shame in that and perhaps more respectable anyway. There’s far more important ways to spend your limited time in mortal life. I have a love-hate relationship with this game.

I like reminiscing about what the game used to be so that “new” players appreciate what they have now. Imagine a game with only the main pvp and pve events, all other events didn’t exist; no DDQ, no Shield Simulator, not even seasons. Imagine no Shield rank and not even shields in PVP! Imagine no boost lists, no champions, no saved covers, no shards, no supports, no vaults, no CP, no Quests, no saved teams, no Lightning Rounds, no team ups, no Bonus rewards, no VIP, no alliances and no roster or cover filters. Imagine the only reward tokens being standard and Heroic, with the only 4character being XFW who’s powers are very different than now. Imagine pve nodes so difficult that even the best rosters at the time would still lose. Imagine pve points replenishing every 8 hours along with “rubber banding“ to allow late players to catch up. Imagine spending 30 min on a single pve node doing a winfinite combo in hopes of beating it.
Imagine a game where you face the same pvp teams over and over (2Wolverine, 2Thor) and after every win you get a loss as well. Imagine a game where you’re constantly hungry for ISO and grind out matches for that small iso reward. Imagine being dependent on random slot machine pulls to get covers for the top characters (like 3Mags, IM40, 3*Spidey and even Punisher). Actually, these parts of the game haven’t changed.

Looking back, it’s a miracle the game survived those early years, but that was reality back then. We didn’t expect any different. Repeatedly coming back to the game after taking breaks that last months or years has reignited my interest and made me appreciate the improvements.

13

The problem with constantly going to that place is that it minimizes today’s problems. It’s like saying kids shouldn’t care about covid because at least they’re not going to get polio. A bad situation is still a bad situation even if it could have been even worse in a vast multitude of ways.
I’m sure not everyone would agree with me but this game needs to concern itself with growth if it wants to continue. Oldsters will continue to drop out for reasons that may have nothing at all to do with the game itself. You’ve got to keep developing the game in a way that invites new players in even if that means strapping a rocket to their rears and potentially devaluing previous players progression.

14

Even if MPQ let all Day 1 new players choose 3 championed 4* or 5* of their choice to roster for free, you’re not going to see a sharp increase in playrate. You’re not solving any problem because that particular problem applies to only players who want to champ and roster all characters quickly but they can’t play competitively or doesn’t want to whale their way up.

Here’s some fact: 80-90% of players play casually. By casually, I meant, they play a few thousand points per pve, and a few wins/couple hundred points in pvps and call it a day. They might go “missing” for a few days before coming back to play again. If you don’t believe me, please join a top 5000-10000 alliance for two months followed by a top 100 alliance for another two months. Note down the scores for all pvps and pves in both alliances and compare the differences in scores.

Some players need to understand that not all players play MPQ because they want to champ and roster all characters quickly. A lot of them play MPQ as a way to kill time or to distress. Again, if you join a top 5,000-10,000 alliance, please observe who they champ for the first 3* or 4*, and who are their first max champed 3* or 4*. If you are thinking it’s going to be Polaris/Juggernaut/R4G, there’s a very high probability of you being wrong.

Therefore, the problem of needing to champ every characters and catching up is a problem that belongs to a very small subset of player. Within this subset, there’s further subset. I think the subset of players that is the most difficult to help is those who who want to champ and roster all characters quickly but they can’t/don’t want to play competitively or doesn’t want to whale their way up.

15

Here’s some fact: 99% of those casual players aren’t paying and aren’t worth considering. The game already had the hooks to bring them in (match-3, marvel characters) and if they don’t play far enough in to get the sense that there’s more to offer, that’s on them. That said, D3 have made efforts to bring them in deeper (like the tutorial videos) so they’re still trying.

What matters is getting players on board that WILL spend and those tend to be the ones that want to DO ALL THE THINGS and to do so with decent speed. I’ve not been here long, but I’m already seeing allied players moving through the spaces I knew and most of them have been spending along the way. We need a continuous flow of players like that. Being just barely ahead of them, I’ve got a really good sense of what the choke-points are and hope to offer decent ways of addressing them.
No one is asking for free anything, it’s about charting a smoother course forward.

16

Smoother? How do you define a smoother course? Can you quantify it in terms of playtime, competitiveness,number of days played, spending, number of 4* champed per month and number of champed 5* a year? To give you an example,

Current Situation
Currently, I’ve been playing mpq for 1400 in-game days. I play pvps to 800 points and play full progression in pve. I’m in a top 100 alliance. I have 50 4* champed and 6 5* champed. I am currently champing 2 4* per month and 1 5* every 2 month.

What a smoother experience means
A smoother experience means I can champ 4 4* per month, and 2 Classic 5* every month.

So, could you define how a smoother experience look like between your current state and your ideal state?

17

If you feel like you need a break from the game then it’s probably wise that you take one.
Game will still be here.
I personally took a 2 year break and came back and got hooked in.
I used to play way more before and only played pvp.
I now do both you gotta find that balance I think…
Pve u can play on your own time now and still make Progression if you play 10.
Pvp I rarely go over 40 wins

18

If you’re burning out it might have less to with the game and more with trying to be competitive. Everyone says the meta is Colossus and Switch for PvP and Okoye and iHulk for PvP but that is only part of it. If you’re used to scoring 3-4 k points in PvP it is probably because you’re on Line trying to organize play to ensure someone gets an Infinity Stone. That adds to the commitment. If you’re in a Top-10 PvE alliance then you need to play at and within specific times with specific teams and a specific pattern for every single event. And if you’re hoarding then you get frustrated that the newest releases do not change the PvE or PvP teams. All that adds stress. To get through that it is important to take breaks, either by quitting or dealing with FOMO and playing at a less competitive level.

But I would love more iso and 4 and 5*s added to the DDQ. I don’t think that would address what is being discussed in this post though. Getting rid of Line and specific times to play might, but you can do that by ignoring placement and only going for progression.

19

Of course I can’t quantify, it’s all about the “feel” of progression and you know that just as well. All I can offer are my impressions of what I felt were rough spots in my own growth as a player and the changes I would make so that others don’t feel the same. I can also look at the history of the game, its’ present and projected future growth and point at some pretty obvious pain points which I already spoke to earlier.
If you want my absolute wishlist it would be:

Raise all reward amounts given current game state (it’s like adjusting for inflation),

Tighten-up MMR thresholds (and publish them maybe? less hidden knowledge is better imo) so less bashing down occurs (even if that requires inserting dummy characters or inflating relative point values or whatever),

Ongoing 5* number only rebalances (bring in line with modern releases without changing mechanics)
If I were to extend to more unrealistic but kind of neat ideas:

Some kind of level between 9 and 10 in PVE, 9 rewards and challenge are nothing compared to 10, it’s a big jump and an intermediary point makes sense,

Follow a logical schedule that is printed accurately well in advance,
Prestige costumes for the mega-whales? Something to do with max’d 5*

20

I wish the developers would slow down the release cadence of new characters and focus more on delivering new events or modes. Puzzle Gauntlet was very welcome but it’s once a month for a few days and then back to the grind of the same tired events schedule.

I’m firmly in 5* land and the end-game content has long become lackluster. It’s like we have been playing the same 12-15 tracks in Mario Kart for over 6-7 years, perfecting our runs, with only new karts being offered on a regular basis, with marginal improvements to our performance. Instead of beating a track at a time of 2min 12 seconds, a new kart may let us beat it in 1min 58 seconds. But we are still racing around the same stale tracks.
Even with the introduction of new characters or new enemies like AIM and Sentry goons, why aren’t they incorporated into the existing pve events to provide some variation ?

Giving us new characters to use within the same tired events is not progressive - it’s iterative and at best, a novelty where we just achieve the same result with a different method. I would like to see more progression, on the developer’s part, to provide compelling game scenarios where more of our hard-earned and broad rosters can really shine. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I love the game and the gameplay (aside from the insecure snowflake cheaters), but just wish that there was more “new” things to do. Seriously, would anyone really complain if they slowed down the character release schedule in lieu of a new event every quarter ?