Stop insulting our intelligence

[system]

@IceIX

Edit: Added some reasoning from further in the thread
One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn’t involve actual strong gameplay. It’s something people do because it’s there, much like tanking. It’s not something that’s fun. It’s not something that’s enjoyable. It’s something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency.

What we intend, and continue to drill in on is that we want players to have a broad mix of characters instead of a Top 3 that is their sole team to play with.

Great. Here’s how you start: make more than 3 2* characters actually worth playing. If the idea is “we’re gonna phase out this thing that people rely on heavily that makes it so you can just use two characters the whole time, so that people use other characters as well”, the first step should NOT be “phase out the thing”, it should be “make the other characters worth using”. There are 3, maybe 4 3* characters worth using; of those, 3 don’t play well with each other. No shit every team is OBW+RGY - you guys pigeonholed us into it! You want to see more variation? Fine, nerf OBW, but make other characters worth using first.

Look, everyone (and I do mean everyone) already knows what this is about. Leveling new heroes costs ISO. Roster slots cost hero points. Health packs cost hero points, and without the ability to heal, they’ll become mandatory to score well in PvP. It’s a cash grab. Pure and simple. Don’t play this up as some huge noble thing. I hadn’t even heard of prologue healing until I had already long-since started using OBW and gotten into the habit of tactically extending my games so I ended up with full health at the end*. I never needed to use the prologue to heal, and by the time the average player gets to the point where that’s necessary (i.e. the point they’re no longer using OBW in PvP) they’re probably not bothered by a little grinding. I’m 533 hours in and I’m still nowhere close to that point. Take from that what you will.

• (Oh, and for the record: that’s fun! I enjoy that! I like trying to stretch the opponent’s health as long as possible so I can just get those last 3 blue AP I need to go into the next fight freshened-up. Now that strategy is dead, and it’s really down to “bash bash bash” with no real thought because Thor is so easy to use that not even the AI can fuck him up.)

However, in Events, we continually buff different characters,

Yes, because PvE is always such a great return on investment. Because working for 10 days for the same shit you could get in 12 hours is totally sensible.
Most alliances ignore PvE. I’ll leave it up to the geniuses at D3 to figure out why.

What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters.

Well, guess what. That STILL ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN. What’s going to happen instead is that “the breadth of their roster” is expanded to accommodate a third, fourth, maybe even fifth copy of OBW, plus a spare thor, ares, wolvie, whatever. Because, as has been pointed out time and time again, most of the 2*s suck. “Oh, my OBW and Ares are downed, let me switch to my backup team… Okay, Moonstone, Captain America, you’re up!” This week, in things people will never say in Marvel Puzzle Quest. As said above, you want to improve roster breadth? Give us a reason to pick other characters. Make, I dunno, Bullseye worth using. Make Moonstone not suck (it’s actually not that hard - knock 8 AP off her black and either choose the tile on gravity warp or make it do half damage on shift instead of n damage - she’d still be underpowered but not completely fucking worthless). Make Captain America’s red scale so that you get more than 55 damage per AP on an ability that costs over 10. Because right now? It’s blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that this excuse is bullshit.

This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can’t just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing.

Okay. Here’s how you do that. Make more than three characters in the 2* lineup actually worth using. There. Done. Easy. Was that so hard? Did you need to make it so that you have to buy health packs, roster slots, covers, and ISO to compete in order to fix that problem? No! So be honest. You’ll sound like jerks, but at least you won’t be treating your customers like knuckle-dragging morons. I can take a lot of shit, but insultingly transparent dishonesty? Do you think we’re idiots? We’re not - the reception to the thread, including the subsequent explanation proves that well enough. Just be honest - “We’re not hitting our financial goals and we think the best way to improve our revenue is to make you shell out to get the only decent characters again, or pay for health packs”. Yeah, it sounds douchey (because it is), but it beats being lied to. And you know what? Everyone. Everyone. Knows that that’s what’s really going on here.

[HailMary]

@Budget Player Cadet

Look, everyone (and I do mean everyone) already knows what this is about. Leveling new heroes costs ISO. Roster slots cost hero points. Health packs cost hero points, and without the ability to heal, they’ll become mandatory to score well in PvP. It’s a cash grab. Pure and simple. Don’t play this up as some huge noble thing.

I wouldn’t call it noble (I doubt Ice would, either), and I don’t like the change, but noting the tiny amount of revenue they get from health packs, and how their money-for-Iso exchange rate is intentionally astronomical, I don’t see this as a cash grab. I see more as a “balance” (yes, with quotes) issue in which they essentially want to control how people play, for better or for worse. Before they announced faster natural healing for higher characters, I thought it was firmly “for worse,” but the accompanying natural-healing buff has piqued my interest.

@Budget Player Cadet

Yes, because PvE is always such a great return on investment. Because working for 10 days for the same tinykitty you could get in 12 hours is totally sensible.
Most alliances ignore PvE. I’ll leave it up to the geniuses at D3 to figure out why.

I like PVE – I’d rather the PVE schedule be less intense at times, but I like it. Also, most top alliances grind PVEs, at bare minimum, seriously enough for alliance-cover placement. If they didn’t, 5DeadlyBanes wouldn’t have a niche.

@Budget Player Cadet

Well, guess what. That STILL ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN. What’s going to happen instead is that “the breadth of their roster” is expanded to accommodate a third, fourth, maybe even fifth copy of OBW, plus a spare thor, ares, wolvie, whatever. Because, as has been pointed out time and time again, most of the 2*s suck. “Oh, my OBW and Ares are downed, let me switch to my backup team… Okay, Moonstone, Captain America, you’re up!” This week, in things people will never say in Marvel Puzzle Quest.

It’d be interesting to see how many 2* players actually start doing this. I definitely see this as a natural player reaction on paper, but I’m not sure it’d really happen at any meaningful scale.

[system]

They don’t even need to create new characters, they just need to make most of the roster more playable. That should not be too difficult…

Thanks for posting.

So I don’t feel lonely preaching in the desert.

[IceIX]

No issue with the post, you should be able to post your thoughts on changes or the game in general as long as it’s done in a constructive manner. Which for the most part this is. It’s appreciated. However, there is no need for yet another thread on the same topic. Please use the thread(s) that are appropriate instead of creating your own.