Request for Training Mode

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I decided to start this topic because I don’t want to turn the dev Q&A into a discussion.

I’ve seen this request a few times before over the years and the typical format of such training mode consists of the following:

  1. free access to use all champed characters in the game, with the ability to change their builds.
  2. ability to choose the levels of all characters, both players and AIs.
  3. ability to choose opponents to play against.

My pov is that the dev will never implement this for free because it effectively solves majority of the problems players hate in the game:

  1. dilution
  2. roster slot cost
  3. years of efforts needed to catch up and champ all Classic 5* or all characters in the game.
  4. need to play according to schedule
  5. MPQ is all about speed.

More importantly, this mode will decrease dev’s revenues drastically because there is zero pressure to spend.

If the dev implements this for free, I’ll stop playing all pvps, pves, ddq, boss events etc. The only mode I’ll play is training mode. I believe that majority of casual players or players in non-competitive alliances would do this as well. I can pop in anytime to MPQ, choose any characters I want to play with and against, and never bother about all other modes. With this mode, I don’t have to worry about:

  1. not being able to champ Latest before they leave
  2. taking 5-10 years to champ all Classic 5*.
  3. 6000 HP per month roster slot cost.
  4. having to play according to schedule.

If you were to champ each Latest 5* using HP store alone, it will cost you (13 * 166 * 12000)/40 = 647, 400 HP. 10,000 HP cost 100 USD. So, it will cost players ~6500 USD to champ the latest 5* from HP store.

I proposed locking training mode behind a 99.99 monthly pass.

2

I’m not convinced that introducing a training mode would replace the current desire to build your own roster and compete, so for that reason I think the suggestion of having to pay 99.99 per month is unreasonable.

My own reason for wanting this is that I have young children who like to come and play the game with me. As I’m sure most people in this forum can appreciate, this is stressful because I have to stop myself saying “No, please don’t do that move, now Shang Chi is going to destroy me!” A non-competitive mode that I could play with my kids to teach them the game and turn them into the MPQ players of the future would be brilliant. This would contribute to the longevity of the game, so why lock it behind a paywall?

3

This is hilarious.

Hound, why do you think they let people test drive cars? I can go to the dealership every day and try one out for free. They don’t charge me 99 dollars to do so. In fact they WANT me there driving their products because the more people who do so, the more you have a customer who says, gosh I really want that car for myself. And then they spend. I personally would rarely use training mode because I spend enough time on this game as is and don’t need to spend anymore on matches that don’t count for anything. I’m going to champ them whether they suck or not.

Also, if everyone just thinks like you say they do, and just wants access to characters without the competition aspect, wouldn’t they just get sandboxed accounts? By the way, I’m pretty sure the people who DO have sandboxed accounts and use them to preview characters (as sort of a training mode) still have regular accounts that they (gasp) spend money on.

4

Probably a problem because you could use it to rack up milestones.
Make matches, use team ups, use boosts, you could do that 24/7 without consequences like you’d have if you grinded ssim for 4 weeks straight.

Yes, code can always be changed, but it’s not realistic I think.
This game is ancient, changes like that would break pretty much everything I think.

5

A training mode like this should have no rewards, no progress for milestones, no effect on any kind of progression.

If it didn’t have any rewards, why would you exclusively play this instead of Story and Versus events?

6

99.99 a month?! Do you work for EA?
All kidding aside, a training mode would be fun, but I can’t imagine many people, apart from whales, paying that much money for it. It is indeed cheaper than champing all 5*, but part of the fun, is opening packs and collecting covers.

7

When it comes to suggestions like these, or any suggestion I strongly disagree with, I usually try to think of example games that had the said feature, and compare and contrast between the two environments and why it would work for one, but not the other, because “sandbox mode” is a thing that exists for plenty of games, but that doesn’t mean it would necessarily work for every one of them.

Now, I personally see MPQ as an alternate take to card games. There’s quite a bit of MTG-flavoring that influences the design choices of each ability. Obviously, there are clear differences between the two games, but suffice it to say that proxies are a thing in MTG, You’d think that with people literally making their own stand-in cards for the game, the company would’ve gone bankrupt decades ago, but this isn’t the case. While I think there are several reasons for supporting this, some being completely irrelevant to MPQ, I think one of them is that proxies are simply not accepted or recognized in official tournaments, and there is some degree of authenticity that the majority of players prefer playing with. This means using a proxy character, in MPQ terms, would never progress your account, and you could never use them for rewards or compete in official events. And we can tweak some levers to make owning the actual thing more appealing than the proxy version. For instance, the proxy version could instead come with fewer covers. Maybe a 3-3-3 version to play against others of that power level. Or perhaps the sandbox could be limited to a select number of characters which rotate each season. You get to test out a random selection of 5 different characters from each tier at max level/covers which you can tweak, but no others. Taking this idea a little further, perhaps you could actually take a 1/1/1 (or champed) version of a hero with you to actual events on loan for a season, but you can’t pick which one it is. Ideas like this work otherwise food sample corners in your local supermarkets wouldn’t work. Being able to demo something risk-free often serves as a powerful incentive to buy the actual thing. In fact, you could couple this idea by featuring the character in a special shop, so that players could be encouraged to spend money to own the character permanently when they realize their time using the character is about to expire, and they happened to enjoy the experience.

And there are some undeniable benefits to being able to test out how a deck functions in a meta environment. It doesn’t have to be all one extreme or another (give players full access to everything or nothing at all). I think we can take an idea we disagree with, and see how it can be adjusted to be more favorable and workable according to our perception. I’m personally more inclined to agree that full access to the entire catalog free of charge would kinda kill the incentive to play this game. Sure there will be players who still participate in events regardless, but the incentive to “collect them all” is rather severely hampered when you already have “collected them all” by having full access to everything. So I think that’s still taking things too far, but there are some merits to the idea of having some elements of a sandbox for testing purposes that could surprisingly end up helping the monetization of this game rather than hurt it.

8

I see both sides of this discussion. Selfishly, I want to try out new teams and combos that are swimming around in my head. But I have to do it in real time, where speed and tokens (and money in a way) are on the line. I would like a free match mode or a training mode where you can only do versus the characters you currently own at their current power level.

But…. I know that would kind of suck for people starting out who have limited rosters. But then again….. it’s just a training/practice mode and nothing is on the line so…… I think I would be for it.

9

It is a mode. It’s effectively giving people loaned characters to play in only that mode of play. So how exactly would you take a loaned character and then be able to roster them for free and then play them in other parts of the game? I’m not following your logic.

10

I don’t think it takes following all of those steps to necessarily deflate interest in a game. If you’ve ever played a video game that allowed for a “god mode”, that is, allow for infinite ammo, infinite HP, and one-shot kills, it feels fun to roll over parts of the game that were once very difficult and possibly frustrating, but the novelty of the god mode quickly dissipates once you have complete access to everything and the game is no longer challenging. I say this example, not to point out that having a sandbox mode is akin to god mode in that you own all heroes and can use them in every mode. But rather to illustrate that once you’ve removed one of the largest incentives of playing this game, it can very quickly make the game boring. You don’t need to necessarily roster any of the characters if you can play them at any point in time. Functionally, they’re identical outside of a superficial nomenclature difference.

I think the feeling of competing against human players is a valid criticism of the original post. It’s not possible to replicate that in a sandbox environment and this is one of the reasons why I think proxies did not bankrupt games like MTG.

But when there is no longer a strong incentive to collect characters you don’t need to collect, outside of the superficial classification of “ownership” in a digital game where you literally own none of those items, it’s hard to argue that you actually have less incentive to play the game than before, even though doubtless there will still be people who play the game. It’ll just be fewer than normal.

I completely recognize the value and benefit that sandbox mode would bring, but I also agree that making the whole game freely accessible to all players would hurt the game more than help it, monetization-wise.

11

Yes it’s a fun mode and it’s always there in many games. In console games. You can make some shin-sho-ryukens and shin-ku-hadokens. In a console game. You paid for the game and the game offers you all the characters, who already were there.
I’ve never see a practice mode in a gacha game. The gacha game is free and you can pay for the characters that they are designing with effort and resources. It’s like asking the keys for the game and go to a trip, saying devs don’t be waiting for us awake. People sandboxed it’s because they did something illegal, not by an option or because it’s cool to check new characters.
If I saw a practice mode on MPQ I’d be more surprised than seeing st Clauss sun tanning on the beach.
However this is not a democracy, the practice mode won’t be enabled because I say so me or others, it won’t be enabled because devs strangely aren’t sucking their thumbs and won’t address resources to something that isn’t new content to improve the game and a feature which can effectively help to a shutdown.

12

You aren’t making the whole game accessible. Players would still need to roster those characters to play them in pve and pvp. And a training mode in a game has never given me less incentive to play a game. When I couldn’t repeatedly pull off a dragon punch in Street Fighter 2 I went into the training mode and practiced it until I got better at it. At no point did I ever say “I can pull off a dragon punch now so I no longer need to play this game anymore.” No, I went back into the other modes and played them and I spent less time using the training mode.

13
  • Many games having practice mode usually share their possibility of playing pvp in real time: not happening on this game.
  • On many introducing to… nodes it was possible to test the new character. Why did they cancelled it? They said something about saving resources. I’d bet if those characters were selling better because of this mode they had’nt cancelled it, I’d say actually it’s the opposite.
  • Puzzle gauntlet is an excellent mode for to test anything: they have a lot of health and they are weak
  • Do you want to test any character not owned? Nice, then be stronger, be a 5* player, grind hard, be a champ em all player, like this game and all gacha games encourage. The End.
14

Yeah, I hesitated to compare this game to a fighting game at first. It definitely crossed my mind though because it’s probably the most popular video game genre to include a sandbox or training mode almost universally. Only poorly designed fighting games don’t include a practice arena. But there’s just a lot different between the mechanisms, experiences, and really the reward incentives between this game and a fighting game. In the fighting game, you practice honing mechanical skills against live opponents. There are twitch skills, timing, and button inputs, all things that do not cheapen but rather enhance your experience in the actual playing field because your opponents will presumably be doing the same. And arguably the skill levels of the opponents you face will climb as you climb the ladder as well. These elements, which make the sandbox almost necessary for fighting games in order to lower the barrier of entry to newcomers, simply do not apply to MPQ because a sandbox is not as crucial to learning the primary mechanisms of this game or for a beginner to jump in and begin competing.

Now, I still think there’s some value in being able to “test out” certain characters in this game because it’s just hard to know how well or how poorly heroes synergize with others, even if they have keywords that suggest synergies. And on the opposite side of this, it would be nice to know how big of a threat those heroes would be to face, as well as what team comps would effectively counter them (assuming they are a threat worth the research). That said, this problem has a rather binary solution. Once you have a basic understanding of how the mechanisms work, and how well it synergizes with other heroes, in addition to the counters to said heroes, the skill ceiling has already been reached.

I think what’s being overlooked here is that the grid where you make matches and test out hero abilities isn’t the only part of this game that people “play”. Unlike fighting games, the “collecting meta” is a very real part of “play” in this game that is simply not present in fighting games. And when they are present (a la smash bros figurines), the game makes sure there’s no easy way to have access to all of them at the same time. If you’ve played this game for any serious amount of time, you should be aware of the heated debates on whether newcomers should “hoard or spend”. And opening packs to see if you’ve unlocked the crucial 13th cover is a significant dopamine hit that comprises a core part of the play experience. By removing the need to collect heroes, a very real element of this game has also been removed. I’m not going to make claims as to whether you personally would continue playing this game or not if you had access to every hero for free. I’m pretty sure you would continue to play since you said you would. But you cannot similarly claim that everyone who plays this game also plays it for the exact same reasons you do. And some do, in fact, play to chase after certain collection goals. And once that has been achieved (rather permanently), they will naturally lose interest in the game. It’s just really hard to argue that removing play elements of the game wouldn’t make the game less compelling to play for at least some portion of the player base. And you’re not adding an incentive since this will be unlocked for free for all players. You are adding a fun “mode”, but by itself, it would not serve as an incentive as much as remove one. This is why I think rather than unlocking all characters permanently at all times, unlocking a few of the characters temporarily, and then featuring them in a store is a better solution to the “sandbox mode” idea. It just works better within the context of this game.

15

A training mode doesn’t remove the need to collect characters so I’m not sure why you keep repeating that. If you unlocked the ability to play as Mighty Thor in training mode, but you don’t have her rostered, and she’s the essential 5* in the pve event you’re not going to miraculously be able to use her in pve just because you can play as her in the training mode.

16

I’d be fine with a training mode that lets us only use the characters we’ve rostered already. It would help me find synergies between characters on my roster.

I’m a relatively new player (less than a year of playing) and I feel like there’s so many characters I have that I’ve yet to use because they’re minimally covered, so they aren’t useful in PVP or PVE.

With a training mode, I can mess around and try new character combinations that I don’t dare take into a real game.

17

After reading the comments and before I reply, I want to reiterate and limit the discussion of training mode to features that I mentioned because this is the typical desired training mode. I forgot to mention that training mode is accessible to all players 24/7 for free. Again, I assume everyone expect training mode to be a permanent feature instead of a temporary feature.

@JimboJambo As for letting your kids play MPQ, you can always get it downloaded in another device to teach them. Besides, there are updated tutorials for beginners of MPQ in the game. Other than that, this is a little hard to counter because you are using an emotional appeal for training mode. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like it will make you spend more on the game.

@Daredevil217 As for comparing training mode to trying out one car everyday at a car dealership every day, I don’t think they allow you to try out the car for 24/7 or give you 24/7 access to try out cars anytime you want without any payment. Neither would they allow you to try out different models of cars every day for one month or more for free. At best, you could do it (try different cars for a while, not for 24/7). If you want do it everyday, I’m sure they will start blacklisting you. As for getting sandboxed accounts, players could do it but it’s troublesome to do it because they have to switch accounts back and forth. For players with sandboxed accounts who still use their original account to play, they have different motivating factor, such as being in a top alliances or being part of the LINE group to make them play, or they are already seasoned players.

Next, this is a gacha game. The dev want players to spend. That’s why players complain about dilution, never being able catch up and having to worry about roster slot cost. It’s all deliberately designed to make players feel that they need to play everyday to catch up. Players don’t want to spend a lot to catch up. They don’t want to wait 5-10 years to champ all 5*. A 24/7 training mode with access to all characters champed will magically solve all these problems. Yes, you can’t bring them to pvps or pves. However, once you have access to all champed characters and you simply want to try out different teams, you’ll be stuck in that mode, unless you are in some competitive alliances.

A training mode is no different from unlocking the entire game without spending. Players are tired of seeing Mindless Ones, Sentry and DA in pves. They are also tired of seeing the same meta or boosted teams in pvps. Training mode changes that. You can pick and choose any opponents that you want. Logically, there are at least 17 million combination of enemy teams that players can choose in training mode. With over 70+ 5* and over 120 4* to choose from, your typical players would be stuck in this mode for months and or even years without needing to spend.

Training mode makes (non-competitive) players less likely to spend and more likely to quit because there are zero pressure to catch up. So far, I don’t see anyone saying that training mode will make them want to spend more. As a matter of fact, they expect it to be free.

How does Training Mode improve spending and extend the longevity of MPQ? It doesn’t. If you think training mode will improve spending and increase revenues, I’ll like to hear how it is possible.

18

What I really want is the ability to trial against a specific team of enemy chars.

For me training mode is about testing out combos against a specific enemy or lvl. I may actually want to go against a specific enemy composition to try out specific team combos or play patterns. So there is some real value for veterans to test out how they might hit any specific floaters before actually committing to a match and risking a red.

I wouldn’t pay 99$ for that but $5 would be a good target level for a tier that included the ability to set a practice match vs a specific level. I would be fine limiting this to rostered chars (but at the comp level, they all have full complete rosters so the limitation doesn’t really matter to the elder tier players.

19

Haven’t you already said in the past that you don’t spend any money on this game? If so then why do you care whether or not other people spend money on it for a training mode?

20

Is this the idea everyone supports when it comes to a sandbox/practice arena? Because I think this is also workable. An experience that is fundamentally different from actual play by preventing you from matching up against existing heroes in this game. Only allowing you to practice with heroes you already own, but nothing outside of your collection, and never against a fully fleshed-out hero. Just a nondescript placeholder that has no abilities and can do no damage. A literal target dummy.