The 4* Meta Will Kill This Game

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

So there’s a new 4* coming out. Another one. Yet another extra 4* character who will be nearly impossible to farm covers for, and who will be significantly better than almost all existing 3* characters. Yet another one who will clog up the 1000 point and 1st-place rewards (which are already stupidly hard to get either way). Yet another one that will sit around for months before being useful, unless you’re willing to drop literally hundreds of dollars on this game.

Anyone remember back before Sentry and shields got nerfed? Most 3* players could consistently hit the top point rewards. But even more importantly than that, there were only 3 4* characters. The pool was concentrated enough that even though you could, at most, get two covers per event (each of a different character, typically), you could still expect to finish out that XForce before too long. Or Nick Fury. Or Invisible Woman, if we want to stretch the borders of realism.

But now? If you want to round out those characters, you’d better be ready to pay through the nose. One consistent complaint I’ve had about this game basically from the start is how insubstantial a $5 purchase is. $5 gets me one character slot or 1.5 levels of a 3* character (less than one on a 4*). You know what $5 gets me in Smash Bros? Mewtwo on both consoles. If I only want the WiiU version, it’s even cheaper. Okay, so I have to pay $60 for the base game, but hey, that gets me Smash Bros. What does 60 bucks get me here? Three covers on a 4*, or 6 on a 3*. And with the way things are now, you need to buy those covers, because even if you win every single event you enter with 1000+ points, it’s going to take you months to finish the character. Because the pool is so dilute, that by the time your 4*s are actually worth using, the whales will have bought all the covers, finished them, and will be clogging up the top spots.

And that’s where it falls apart. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, 4* progression is not like 3* progression. Due to how hard it is to get them, and how much better they are, we really are shifting to a meta where only the whales have a chance. And that is not a good look for any game. Every single mobile dev needs to watch that video, but it applies here just as well. If XForce came out today, rather than back when tons of people were able to Sentry Bomb their way to 1400, the problem would be even worse; it’s truly serendipity that the very best 4* came out back when enough people could finish him to stave off total disaster.

But I can’t remember the last time I saw an XForce green cover. And the more 4*s come out, the worse this problem gets.

And so we come to Wilson Fisk. Yet another solid-looking 4* who trumps most 3s and who nobody but the whales will have before the end of the year. Yet another dude I can look forward to seeing in the PvP rotation instead of those final covers I need for my XForce. Yet another dude who’s gonna sit in my roster for over a year doing nothing productive whatsoever. Others have complained about the PvE event, so I’ll pass on that here. But seriously. More 4s is a really bad idea.

2

No, the problem is that 4s are not significantly better than 3s.
Which is why it’s completely backwards that the devs are so stingy with handing them out.

Ever since Thor got hit by the nerf bat and Xforce was proclaimed to be over the intended power level of 4s there’s no point in levelling 4s.

3

I will agree that 4s are coming out way too fast, but not for the reasons above. There is no 4 meta because almost all of the 4*s are awful. I know you quit a while ago, but it sounds like you haven’t gotten back deeply enough into the game to realize this.

I’m not going to stress over Kingpin, because he has absolutely no use in PvP. No one is going to shield hop with a character that requires a 5 cd tile to do serious damage. Unless a whale is just screwing around out of boredom, you will never even see this character, much less have him distort the meta.

4

Yah, the cover cost is ridiculous in this game. $300 to max a 3*? WTF!? You want a full roster of 3*'s? That’s about $12,000? Lol. And here Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are not allowed to pass the magical $60/game figure that has been set long ago by gamers (moving to releasing half games, and adding “dlc” of course to push more out of the game).

Honestly, drop the price of covers to $1-2 a piece (the average cost of a full IOS game) and people would buy them up. A roster slot should be equal to $1, too. You might lose some off the folks that buy a lot no matter what, but you make up for it by all the non-spenders actually dropping money on the game for a reasonable price.

5

Complaints of OP as I saw them:

  1. Too many 4* characters
  2. You need to pay to max 4* characters quick
  3. You don’t get enough for your $$$
  4. Only whales can compete
  5. The new meta is only available to whales

I agree with about half of them.

Complaints 2 and 3 are inconsistent. First there is the complaint that money doesn’t buy much in the game, and then there is the complaint that only whales can compete. If they make things so anyone can affordably buy their way to the top, more people will. Let’s give this game a horrible reputation, by saying there’s no point in playing UNLESS you pay. See how many players the game loses then. Revenue will still go down. Further, no credit is given for getting the base game for free.

  1. Only whales and the hardcore have been able to dominate the top anyways. You’ll never have a system where a hardcore player with money doesn’t dominate faster than just a hardcore player without money. A hardcore player who isn’t a payer definitely needs to prioritize which characters to level up.

  2. How often do you see Star-Lord or Xavier actually used in PVP? I’m just not seeing it. Kingpin is another such character who won’t be dominate in PVP.

6

4* progression is broken, making 4* characters difficult to obtain.

4* progression is largely meaningless, because only a handful of the characters are noticeably better than 3* characters.

These are two distinct problems, both of which need to be solved. The second one needs to be solved first, with the first following shortly. Kingpin looks neat. I would play with him if I had him. I won’t have him for like a million years. Oh, well.
Add him to the list with most of the other 4* characters.

I’m beginning to ramble here, so let me refocus: I agree with the subject heading that the 4* meta might just kill the game. But the danger of underwhelming or unplayable 4* characters if far greater than the danger of unobtainable ones.

7

One of the problems with the 4* meta is that 4*s are back to where they were before the X-Force buff: they’re trophies. I’ve got Starlord at 4 covers, Elektra and Professor X at 3, and that’s probably where they’ll stay until they come up in the daily rewards, and even after that, they still won’t be usable. I could bust my butt for Kingpin, and all that would give me is the ability to do essentials in the next PVE (which probably won’t award anything I want).

The 1000 point progression in PVP made it achievable, but the shield cooldowns mean I either need to completely structure my workday around it, and be lucky on top of that, or hope the weekends offer a cover I need. And, the fact is, the 4*s they’re releasing really aren’t worth that much effort, given that I’d need to do that something like 7-10 times per character to make them usable.

8

I have 25 covers for my Fury, Elektra and Starlord so far but they’ll probably all stay level 70 because they are NOT significantly better than 3star characters and i can max 4 3star characters before i max one of them.
The only 4star significantly better than the top ten 3stars is Wolverine and people are crying so hard he’ll probably get worse soon enough. Endgame is just completing your collection, there’s nearly no progress other than that.

9

This is all part of their master plan to break you personally Ben. Immediately after kingpin comes out will be a release event for 3* Thing and kingpin will be the only required character.

10

Ben Grimm is my long-lost brother. I like trying to evenly level my whole roster, and this is exactly how I feel about 4*. Also in there correcting me whenever I make a mistake about LR’s.

No reason to play for them. I want to play on my time-frame, and the 1K progressions feel way to time intensive. I also have several 4*'s with few covers, and don’t expect more until they come up in daily rewards. They’ve shown there is no reason to buy them - any that get good will get nerf-bat.

The game has actually become more enjoyable once they showed me this. I started worrying, how will I ever make it to 4* land? Now I think - meh, 4* land just means you can’t level your 3*'s which are actually usable. Why the 4* meta will kill the game is it will cause burn-out to those who -are- trying to get all the covers and level all the characters.

11

The covers aren’t coming out too fast. The 4* cover rewards are coming out too slowly.

12

I’m having a hard time deciding. If they want to move the meta to the 4* meta game then they have to release many new 4* characters. However, if they do so, it doesn’t give most people the time to acquire and cover them.

I’m pretty sure a poll would say that there are too many 4* and the covers come out too slow, ignoring the reality that the game is moving into the 4* metagame regardless of how many people come along.

13

I think comparing the monetization scheme on a f2p game to something like Smash Bros isn’t fair, since it’s not a realistic comparison. The monetization schemes are completely different for the two games: it’s like saying “why would I pay 300 dollars for an xbox when I can buy a deck of cards for a dollar, or walk outside for free?”. A better comparison would be to other, successful f2p mobile games like Clash of Clans or something along those lines, in which case I’m guessing that MPQ is looking reasonable (which is ridiculous in of itself). That being said, when compared to something like Puzzle & Dragons (which has the best f2p monetization scheme I’ve seen), MPQ is definitely sorely lacking.

14

I think the above average player would be super excited about the release of multiple attainable 4* releases. There are just not enough opportunities to earn 4s. 3s are handed handed out 5/PVP, plus dailies so players see how it is possible to earn covers fast enough that they will eventually get to play with those characters. Even with the skill, dedication, and roster strenght to earn most 4*s, there are simply too few chances to get specific covers to “catch up” and if even the best of the best cannot attain them without buying several covers what hope do the normal players have?

So simply put there need to be more opportunities to earn 4*s and this wouldn’t be such a huge deal.

15

I don’t see how any of this is a problem. 4 stars as they are do not give people a substantially huge advantage and hitting the 1K progression reward is not difficult. It’s just a matter on how well you coordinate, how well you shield, and a little bit of timing.

I’ve officially dropped out of my main alliance some months ago and have had no problems progressing in the pvps in which I decide to compete for covers. I was inactive when Cyclops and Iron Fists dropped and do far they are the only two 3* characters in missing. I’m also missing Xavier and Star Lord but I don’t feel limited for having them. Even with this current release of Kingpin, I ask you one question, does it really matter? Outside of the upcoming PvE after Thick As Thieves, when will he ever be essential for nodes? The other 4 star characters have seldom been required since they were released.

And this thing about whales? Please. This game doesn’t favor them as much as you want to believe. Hell, while people were busy complaining about them and how high their point totals were, I was busy riding that point train to 1300+ points myself because that was the smart thing to do. I’ve only spent maybe $200 on this game (none since last year) and a good majority of that was buying covers for 3*s to jump start my own PvP progression. A single XF cover, maybe 2, and roster slots.

If anyone feels like there’s too many releases and that you’re getting left behind or burnt out. Take a break. You won’t care after that first month and you’ve missed about 3 characters. This is just a game and if you find the character releases to frequent then you should probably take a second look at how much this game matters to you. I had to do it, you probably should too.

16

Too fast of a release or too slow of a release are relative. The current release structure is the issue. We all want the extra characters, don’t lie.. We just want a way to earn and cover them in a more timely, less stressful or expensive way.The problem is that the entire PvP and PvE environment are all built on an inflexible foundation that the game has outgrown and to change the structure fundamentally changes the game. At this point there are only “bandaid” type options that must work within the constraints of the original programming. With the exception eventually being a hard reboot of the code and relaunch of the game which could be a first of its kind icon_e_smile.gif

The easiest way would be to release the 4 star characters two at a time and give the player who earns them a choice until you have enough characters you can add a new DDP survival node for 4 stars that’s 6 waves long.

The the other way that would be an easy fix would be (I’m sorry to even say it) to create a 4star CP. 3 stars will be the base and 4 stars would be more likely. These can be offered as rewards to earn or resources to be purchased say once a month when the next two cards come out.

17

Easiest solution to this: Start handing out 4s as PvP rewards, actual placement rewards not just top 1. Also maybe rerun a couple PvEs with them as top 50 rewards. If there was a PvE with X-Force as a top 50 reward I would probably just hit the progression rewards. After Kingpin, I would not be upset if they ran reruns for each of the 4s over the next 6 months instead of releasing new ones.

The current 4* meta is bad for the game, I feel, mostly because they are so ultra rare. It takes 6-10 months to fully cover a 4*, even if you win at it’s release event, even if you are in a top 100 PvP alliance, and even if you aggressively pursue those 1000 point progression rewards, and not everyone can do that. Thus, unless you are spending hundreds of dollars on characters, most of these releases are shiny roster badges for a long time-frame.

18

Yep… and when they release one per month, it’s like trying to plug up a hundred leaks with your ten fingers and ten toes…

19

Professor X is not a trophy. He’s phenomenally lethal.

20

He is. Except, he is unusable by over 90% of the player base. Even people who won 3 covers and got the progression cover and opened 1 in a token still only have 5 of his 13 covers. He is “phenomenally lethal” only in the hands of those who dumped crazy resources on him. Wasn’t your whole point that is the reason the 4* meta will kill the game?

Imagine if, instead of Kingpin, we had another PvE to earn Professor X. We max out 3s by running their events over and over again, if we are patient. Why is this not also true of 4s?