Report Card for D3

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
1

Based on approx three months with the game and approx a month and a half of being a forumite:

A+… Communication of upcoming characters and character changes (Not hat we always like them, but they do notify us)
B-… Graphics, Presentation, and Story Line (Would give an A if I had option to turn graphics off)
C … Amount of Characters available. (This is mid ground for me. I like that there are a lot of characters. But I don’t like that some are so unbalanced)
C … Prices of in game purchases
C-… Keeps players interested and engaged
D+… Communication of game/event changes
F … Communication of Rules, sub-rules, and overall explanation of game play.
N/A… Customer Support response & response time. (I have never contacted CS, so I don’t have the right to grade based on others post)

These grades are based on my 2-3 months with the game and the time that I have spent here on the forums. I understand that longer time players and forumites will have different views and opinions than people who just started. And I kinda want to see what everyone thinks.
There are all things that we think D3 does well. And there are all things that we think D3 does terribly. And there are things in between. These are just the ones I could think of. What does everyone else think? What grades do you give D3 and why?

2
  • B- : Communication of upcoming characters and character changes
    Announced well in advance and decent explanation of new or adjusted workings of character powers.
    However, I subtract major points for lack of proper community management surrounding character changes.
    The ‘this too shall pass’ policy as refered to in Al’s blog posting in particular is outright offensive to responses from caring players.
  • B- : Graphics, Presentation, and Story Line
    Storyline is a bit cookie cutter, but it finally seems to be getting off the ground with Sentry.
    Artwork is decent to good. Biggest problems are with usability of the UI.
  • C- : Amount of Characters available
    Lots of characters available. However, balance is bad and players can expect to spend disproportionate amounts of time trying to get a character to an actual usable level.
  • F : Prices of in game purchases
    Way, way overboard. For the price of maxing a single 3* character, you could purchase 2 entire triple-A games.
    They’re called micro-transactions for a reason, but apparantly that part was lost on the people responsible.
  • C- : Keeps players interested and engaged
    They try, but for the better part fail. PvE Events are re-runs, ‘Heroic mode’, non-story-driven Simulator events, etc.
    PvP are just randomly shuffled cover rewards with an essential character tagged on for the matches.
    The recently introduced season mechanic and player burnout is also factored into this grade.
  • D- : Communication of game/event changes
    Minor announces in-game. Most changes, you need to look up here on these forums.
    No offering of some small form of token compensation for events gone wrong. Most we’ve seen is a single written apology.
  • F : Communication of Rules, sub-rules, and overall explanation of game play
    What communication?
  • N/A : Customer Support response & response time
    Cannot personally judge customer support as I’ve not had to communicate with them. Given the horror stories I read here, I dread that day though.
3

F : Prices of in game purchases
I have not monetized, with the exception that I paid for a slot in an alliance.

I was thinking a day or two ago what price would actually get me to pay anything into the game. I decided that if HP were priced at ~20% of what it is now, and Iso was priced at ~6% of what it is now, I would not feel like I was being ripped off, and I would willingly pay into the system on a regular basis. As it is, I not only feel like the prices are a ripoff, but that they’re actually a joke - that the designers don’t actually expect people to pay anything, and if someone ever tried, they’d just hit a page that said “Wait, seriously? You think so little of your money that you’d blow this much of it on something that doesn’t even noticeably contribute to your gaming experience?” and then provide a link to a therapist for OCD.

The sad thing is that the obscene prices aren’t even a good way to maximize profit out of this game. Only 8% of players actually spend money on the game, and on average those are the players who spend hundreds of dollars a month on things like boosts. The percentage of players who would consider buying tokens or covers is probably far larger than that, if they’d drop the price down to something sane.