Slowing down to prevent complete burnout

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Day 220 player here. Definitely a transition player, no 166s, and no real desire to push anyone to 166 because I didn’t have any viable candidates that would benefit me in PVP enough to offset the scaling I’d face in PVE. Eventual goal was get covers, get some PVP contenders, raise them to 166, have a chance in PVP. PVE was where I could shine, just by putting in the time to grind. The first real PVE where I had the boosted characters, and decided to go for it was Dark Avengers: Heroic - Sept. 25 - Oct 1. I finished 1st in my bracket. Since then, I decided to play PVE to get the covers/HP that came with finishing high.

Spoilered is my how I have fared since. Don’t have an accurate pt count/ranking for the most recent because I have started to lose interest.

[spoiler]Top 10 finishes (Why not Top 2?)
Will be Top 10 The Simulator - Dec 30 - Jan 7 (lost interest, don’t want to grind)
289668 pts Enemy of the State - Dec 23 - 29 (slept thru the last 8 hrs of the event, would’ve been in contention for Top 2, if I hadn’t)
3rd? 241360 Prodigal Sun: Dec. 15 - Dec. 22 (Top 2 were just more dedicated)
3rd 209729 ISO 8 ISO-8 Brotherhood Dec 04 - 9 (slowed down so someone could get Yellow X-Force)
154835 Meet Rocket & Groot- Nov 26-Dec 1 (Thor rewards, forgot my phone at home Sunday morning, lost chance at 3 covers)

Completed
The Gauntlet: Dec. 10 - Dec. 15
The Gauntlet: Oct. 30 - Nov. 4

Top 2 finishes
2 143081 Meet Rocket and Groot (Take Two - Dec 1-4)
1 170915 Thick As Thieves: Nov 19th - Nov 25th
1 262212 The Simulator - Nov 11th-18th
1 85131 Heroic: Juggernaut Nov 6 - 9
1 184776 The Hunt - Oct. 24-28
2 106148 Unstable ISO-8 - Oct 17 - 24
1 51093 Venom Heroic - Oct 13 - 15
1 59639 Deadpool vs. MPQ: Oct. 10 - 12
1 242010 Prodigal Sun: Oct. 2 - Oct. 9
1 202589 Dark Avengers: Heroic - Sept. 25 - Oct 1[/spoiler]

It was fun while it lasted, but it is definitely not worth it looking back. A lot of the grinding I did seemed fun at the time, and it does seem like it was more about the journey than the destination. A lot of the covers/characters I got as rewards sit on my roster doing nothing.

I definitely won’t be going into future PVEs with the type of enthusiasm I did in the past. I thought I might reserve the effort for black/green X-Force covers, each of which I need 3. But with 2 more 4*s being introduced into the top 2 PVE prizes, I don’t know if I want to do that anymore.

I am trying to slow down how much I play, so that I don’t completely burn out and want to give up on the game. Being a part of an alliance that still plays and have members that are still optimistic about the game helps out.

There were PVPs, that I wish I would’ve played harder in this past season to respec or get the covers that would’ve reinvigorated me into wanting to play more, by giving me the characters that I would’ve switched over to trying to becoming more PVP focused.

Right now, there are too many characters, and I think I have one of everybody. The rate at which I am getting covers is horrible. The 3* covers I am getting, are for covers I am maxed out on. Currently have level 40 doubles of Steve Rogers (2/1/0), Sentry (0/1/1), and Deadpool (1/0/0). They are just holding roster spots, and I have no intention of leveling them, unless they get max covered before my other single characters do.

Character vaulting and ISO shortage has also slowed my transition. The direction the game is going isn’t promising, I feel. And this is someone who white-knighted for the devs and gave them the benefit of the doubt all the time. Too many mis-steps, too little communication, too few problems addressed, more problems created by the problems that were addressed, etc.

I hope things do turn around, because it can be a fun game at times. It has changed to being more of a chore, and I’m pretty happy that the bracket I am in, seems to have also lost interest. I have been able to stay Top 10 while missing a lot of refreshes. If anyone has any suggestions that might get me back into the game, please share. I want to want to play, but the devs aren’t making it easy.

Roster

[spoiler]1 Star - 5 Characters
2 Star - 11 Characters
3 Star - 34 Characters
4 Star - 6 Characters

1 Star
1 Storm 5, 3, 5
1 Juggernaut 5, 5
1 Black Widow 0, 5
1 Black Widow 0, 5
1 Black Widow 0, 5

2 Star
94 Ares 4, 4, 5
94 Black Widow 3, 5, 5
94 Cap America 3, 5, 5
94 Captain Marvel 5, 3, 5
94 Daken 3, 5, 5
94 Hawkeye 3, 5, 5
94 Human Torch 5, 5, 3
94 Magneto 3, 5, 5
94 Storm 5, 5, 3
94 Thor 3, 5, 5
94 Wolverine 5, 5, 3

3 Star
104 Cap America 3, 5, 5
104 Falcon 5, 4, 4
104 Sentry 3, 5, 5
104 She-Hulk 4, 4, 5
104 Cap Marvel 5, 5, 2
104 Black Widow 3, 3, 5
104 Iron Man 4, 5, 2
104 The Hulk 4, 4, 3
104 Wolverine 5, 3, 3
104 The Hood 3, 2, 5
104 Black Panther 3, 3, 3
104 Mystique 2, 5, 2
104 Deadpool 5, 2, 1
102 Rocket & Groot 2, 3, 4
102 Daken 0, 4, 3
102 Magneto 4, 0, 3
91 Blade 4, 1, 2
89 Psylocke 0, 3, 3
89 Spider-Man 2, 2, 3
81 Human Torch 1, 4, 1
78 Storm 3, 2, 3
76 Gamora 2, 2, 2
76 The Punisher 2, 0, 3
68 Thor 1, 1, 3
66 Doctor Octopus 3, 4, 5
63 Beast 2, 3, 0
63 Dr. Doom 3, 0, 0
63 Ragnarok 2, 2
53 Daredevil 1, 0, 2
45 Colossus 1, 1, 1
40 Loki 2, 2, 1
40 Captain America 2, 1, 0
40 Sentry 0, 1, 1
40 Deadpool 1, 0, 0

4 Star
154 Nick Fury 3, 5, 3
147 Wolverine 2, 2, 3
131 Devil Dinosaur 0, 1, 4
104 Invisible Woman 1, 4, 2
94 Elektra 2, 1, 1
90 Thor 2, 0, 1[/spoiler]

2

Lukewin, I’ve seen your name atop many a bracket I’ve been in, including the current simulator. I don’t blame you for slowing down – you’ve been killing it for months and I’m guessing you’ve sacrificed some things in real life as a result. I’d recommend moving to PVP, and especially a top 100 PVP alliance if you’re not already in one. Covers come faster and it requires a fraction of the effort.

I’ve been lucky with a few token pulls and got 5 green xforces pretty quickly. I can absolutely say he’s the sole reason I’ve been able to hit top 50s and top 25s in PVP, so if you have some hp left over from all of your grinding I’d say to throw it all at xforce. I think you’ll have more fun in the game and won’t burn out as fast.

Good luck!

3

With the current change in the shield system and cooldown, I’m not sure that is the best advice to give either…

4

Lukewin, take some time to relax at the game. Bank some ISO. With the grinding for top finishes, and bracketing, this game can drive you to total burnout.

Take a vacation from the grind. I hear legends of lower brackets when only a minimum of play will get you rewards. With all your wins, you are in the super-grinder brackets. We just had someone come back from a two week holiday, and it was amazing what “low” scores netted him a top 10.

Good luck!

5

Yep, This game is just not rewarding for the amount of time invested. PVE Event tokens give crap. 7 day PVE events are crap. 2:24 refreshes…can’t do PVP for how much longer!? 2 months…4 months…8 months??? The fact that I could put 4+ hours a day into this game and STILL barely have a shot at any good 3* covers is a complete kittytiny joke.

Game is a snails race, even for whales & people with plentiful free time. I’ve probably put $300 into the game, have a decent roster for day 80…but it’s not worth it anymore. Devs are obviously not addressing the real issues. It was fun, and a good time waster to more than get my money back…but it’s time for me to go to casual f2p as well.

6

Until the turnover decreases so much they start realizing their strategy was soooo wrong.

Apparently, it’s already started since MPQ has dropped in the profitability charts on Mobile Apps and Steam players have decreased dramatically in the last months…

Rewarding loyalty by taking all possible decisions to make veterans/whales quit is awful.

7

Just relax in pve and focus on pvp. I took a break this pve and it’s been wonderful. Only 78k points in simulator and right outside top 150. Also, pvp is much more enjoyable (for now) than pve since your not grinding the same nodes over and over and over again.

8

Yep, PVP is the way to go. I’m a transition player and figured out early on that any PVE top 20 (why not 25???) took more of my life than I cared to give, and even top 50 was crazy to try to hit. To many healthpacks, to many unlucky cascades, to much money needed if I wanted to attempt it.

Every PVE for six months or so I’ve been hitting T150 and being happy with my one cover and one from alliance. Know how I’ll double that number that took me seven days to play for? I’ll play PVP in about three hour-long sessions when this one comes up soon. Relaxed and slow, T100 PVP and T150 PVE - to prevent the burnout that’s my recommendation.

9

I’ve stopped playing PVE for the very reasons that were outlined. It’s just way easier grabbing covers in a T100 alliance.

In a 2.5 day PVP event, I play 2-2.5 hrs TOTAL which usually gets me guaranteed 2 covers in a T100 alliance.. That’s maybe 6-8 hours in a week. Guaranteed 6 covers.

To place top 150 in a PVE event requires about 2.5-4 hours. That’s 17-28 hours per week! 2 covers if you’re in a T100 PVE alliance. More if they run the shorter events.

A big factor of the burnout lately is twofold. 1) Reward structure needs changing. 2) Bad community feedback.

The problem really wasn’t end times or MMR. The problem is reward structure needs an overhaul. Everything across the board needs an increase. ISO, covers and HP. Let me explain why.

ISO - ISO generation needs balancing. With the amount of characters in game, ISO generation is at a crawl now. 60 characters? and we can level 1 3* every 3-4 weeks playing at a reasonable rate? What’s the point of competing if I can’t even use a few characters effectively? (look at OP) He doesn’t have any 166’s, yet he’s a huge grinder on day 200.

Covers - Just start handing out 3* covers like candy and unvault the characters. Seriously, this needs to happen now. 1/3 of the characters are vaulted right now. We may hit a point this year that 1/2 of the characters are vaulted. W T F. With slow ISO generation, it really doesn’t matter if a player has covers or not. I’m in a t25 alliance where I have many cover maxed characters but don’t use a majority of them.I would really like to see transitional players get covers for free at this point, so that they may also enjoy the game. Random drops from PVP battles, increased drop rates, decreasing placement needed for 3*.

HP - I think this is the lowest priority on the balance scale. But roster slot costs should be reduced, maybe 500HP per slot.

I really hope that this will be done before 4* covers flood the game. At this point, it just seems like people are losing interest in the game because they either can’t get covers/levels or event compete. Would also like to add that MMR really can’t be solved without just giving out covers to people. It’s just inevitable that 2* rosters will eventually hit a wall whether that’s at 300 points or 900 points. Have you noticed that every time they tinker with MMR, it either gets worse or it remains the same. Yea, there’s always going to be a wall now that power creep is a big problem that so far, they have no clue how to deal with it.

10

I hear meth can help you get through these PVE’s. Is that true?

11

100% true.

Whether it’s worth it is part of your own cost/benefit analysis.

12

Only the blue stuff for PvE. You need the 99% pure Heisenburg cook to get through that grind.

13

Yeah the time it takes to get your FIRST fully covered 3* is mind blowing. Without buying covers for my Blade/Capt America 3*, I’d still be far from my first 3* and I was in the #1 PVE alliance, followed Polarity’s guide since minute 1, and was able to play for hours a day every day for 3 months straight. The fact that it’d still take me at least 6+ months to fully cover a 3* is a complete joke. This game is broken and the devs do not care.

I have no problem paying for this game as I am an adult with a good job, but spending $100+ for ONE freaking char when the game remains broken? Principle alone, that is comical. If the devs don’t want people getting too good too fast that’s fine, but don’t force us to play your b.s. grindfest for minimal reward and essentials that are required to actually play.

14

It doesn’t take 6+ months to fully cover a 3*. I lay about as much as you and fully covered my 1st hero in about 4 and a half months. Just hit 6 month mark and have 2 fully covered heroes plus another few that are close to fully covered.

15

I think this is very much subject to token pull luck - and now, vaulted character luck. I’m at 5 months and don’t have a fully covered 3*, and that’s not due to lack of playing. The fact you personally have a covered 3* doesn’t mean it’s possible for every player. And realistically, how could it be, given reward tiers? Only so many people are going to get so many covers. The rest comes down to luck, whether you’re willing to buy them or not, and whether the ones you actually need are even in rotation.

@ OP - Definitely take a break. This is a fun game, but it becomes an abyss of wasted time after a while, heh. Stepping back is gooooood.

16

Definitely plan to do your recommendation soon, PVE is starting to burn me out too and will be switching to PVP only soon! Watch out for the We are Gr00t PVP edition alliance icon_e_wink.gif