As you are probably aware, discontent is growing amongst the user community at MPQ. Long time players are leaving, transitioning players are getting frustrated, vgeterans are tearing their hair out and the seemingly ill-considered changes that are constantly being made, and I dread to think how a new player addresses the game. There is a growing perception that the developers are isolated from the playing community and are pretty much out of touch. Some of these accusations may be a little unfair, but I think that there are a number of concerns that need addressing.
Demiurge’s Strategy & Vision Of The Future of MPQ
I think this is the main concern of the entire user community. There seems to be no roadmap on where the developers want the game to get to and where any of these isolated changes fit into that. If there was a vision of the future then I think most of us would buy into that, or at least provide constructive criticism on how we feel that would need to change. Instead we get a stream of knee-jerk reactions which don’t seem to have any forethought – mainly involving releasing a stream of new characters (more on that later), rebalancing them and continually messing with PvP and PvE. Don’t get me wrong – not all of the changes are bad, but very little planning seems to have gone into many of the changes, and there never appears to be an end-goal.
Catering To The Different Levels Of Player
To my mind there are 4 or 5 levels of player:
Total newbie,
2* roster with aspirations to move to 3*
Rounded 3* roster trying to pick up 4* covers
4* roster
Now there may be other smaller sub groups, but that seems to be the main classifications of the guys I play with and the people talk to.
I have a number of issues here with the way the game is currently structured.
- When I joined 480 days ago, there seemed to be a clear path to get to 2* and a sense of achievement to go with it. Thor and Ares covers didn’t magically drop to you constantly in battles, so there was a sense of achievement in playing in a PVP and getting that 2*, or getting that cover from a token. Demiurge effectively killed this part of the game, meaning that 3+* covers are really the only meaningful rewards.
- Why is MPQ structured in such a one-size-fits-all manner? Why is it so important to balance everything all the time? 4* rosters should have an easier time than 1* or 2* rosters in the same events, but why shoehorn everyone into the same events? There seems an obsession with having everyone compete in the same PvP and PvE structure all the time? Why? Introduce more events where there are more tiers, both in the difficulty of matchups and the rewards at the end. There was an experiment with elite PvP style events, but the cost to enter was HP and the rewards were ridiculous for the effort involved. Maybe if you gave the top tier players something worthwhile to play for then they wouldn’t be leaving in droves. Similarly, if you offered lower players some meaningful progression then they might feel they were getting some reward.
- This is related to 2) but please look at the scaling. In what world should it make the game easier if I have a 3* character with 13 covers and I don’t level him up beyond 94? Surely, Levelling my character should make my current battles more achievable and unlock new doors, but the developers don’t seem to have grasped that.
The Constant Stream Of New Characters
It seems that the main method that the developers feel will progress the game is by releasing a never ending stream of characters – mostly 3*. Again, this seems to display a spectacular lack of vision. How having 50 or 100 3* characters makes the game better than 20 or 30 is beyond me. OK, you get to play your favourite characters, and if you like collecting covers then it increasingly expands the character list, but otherwise it means that you have an ever growing roster that you need to subsidise and covers that are harder and harder to acquire (purely due to volumes and decreased token draw rates). If there was any logic on how having all these 3* characters makes the game better then I’d love to hear it.
Additionally, the HP cost of roster spots is prohibitively high, considering the sheer volume of characters. I’m lucky in that I’ve been playing for nearly 500 days and that I’ve built my roster over time – meaning I can discard most 2s and have enough HP to cope. I’ve no idea how a 2 roster is supposed to finance 20 1-cover 3* characters. Do they just sell the covers (which is entirely counter-productive) or shell out $$$ on roster slots?
Finally, what is it with trying to kill people with the 6 day PvE grind to get a new character? Seriously, I finished the PvE last night and within 10 minutes, the new PvE had appeared with yet another new character, that will no doubt be essential. You really are risking burnout.
Release Of Changes To The Game
One of my biggest frustrations is the way Demiurge just release a massive change to the game with no warning, and often in mid-season. Do the developers really have no concept of how to release changes like this? How can we go through 3 fundamental changes in matchmaking in the first 3 events of a new season? It all smacks of knee-jerk reactions without any consideration to the player base. Also, there seems to be this rigid runaway train view where everything must be released in the strict PVP season cycle. Again, why? If matchmaking is so screwed that it needs a total overhaul, then stop the season for a few days! Is it that tricky? Or alternatively leave the season on the old logic, and introduce another PvP running alongside the event which does not contribute to the season, but with rewards where people would play and then give honest feedback? None of this is rocket science, but the developers seem limited by totally rigid thinking and don’t seem prepared to take a pause for even a minute. Surely it’s better to do something more slowly and do it right, rather than try to fit some self-imposed schedule and screw it up.
Do The Developers Really Play The Game?
Part of the alienation that we feel, is that we never feel that the changes or the direction of the game has really been tested properly or thought through. If the devs played the game properly, then many of feel that some of the changes made wouldn’t even be considered. Maybe there needs to be more active engagement of the user community before changes are made.
There are many other issues that we have here, but this list would grow forever. It would be lovely if we got some official response to some (any?) of these points, just to address our fears and concerns.
