The economy has been ruined.

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
1

I’ve been playing this game for 54 days now, and up until the most recent patches, was thoroughly enjoying myself. Character balance aside (which was never bad, IMO), the game rewarded the smart player for wins and time played with level distribution in covers, ISO and HP. It really scratched that turn-based/puzzle game itch for me in a way few games like Civ, Heroes of Might and Magic, Tetris, City of Heroes and the original PQ have. I really enjoyed playing and dedicated entire days to just playing, and it never got old.

The iso-8 & HP reward system was as close to perfectly balanced as you can get. If you used 3 boosts per match in tournaments you had a very slow attrition rate, but it was still a choice between buying boosts and leveling your hero/villain. I could power through a tournament, hit the top 45, lock for 100hp, and recoup my hp as well as get a few covers I hadn’t had before and it would be worth the iso cost to me because I got a new cover or three. I would then go do some missions or events to reload my ISO to a point where I could level up some heroes and save some for boosts. It was a great balance and it was truly fun and it kept me coming back for more.

The increases for rainbow, double-color boosts, shields, fee for skipping and insane mob level scaling have almost killed the fun of this game for me. It’s become more of a penny-pinching venture than anything else. I’ve spent over 10k iso-8 in the past day alone just buying boosts for the Thieves event to keep in the top 10. At my level, where most of my heroes are 40-50, There’s no amount of skill that will allow you to overcome the lack of a boost against LV 230 mobs repeatedly. The boosts are vital due to the scaling. I could handle it if it were just the rainbow boost (which I will never pay 100HP for, ever). But doubling the cost for double-colored boosts…

The delicate balance that was the MPQ economy has been thoroughly skewed. The 20 iso that you get for farming long-forgotten noob missions? It is close to worthless now. The 100 iso you get for selling 1 star covers? Worth half as much now. How do you fix it? By giving more? Why even bother? That’s just inflation, and then you have to adjust the leveling cost. Just roll back the old pricing structure. Otherwise, the main currency of the game, ISO-8, has been devalued by a huge margin.

I don’t know what you guys used as a metric to determine your increases, but I have a suspicion that you just throw mud against a wall to see what sticks. Your game was growing and thriving and now you’re overpricing it to a point where anyone who wants to be more than a very casual player will turn around and go elsewhere for their gaming time. It’s a damn shame because I was so high on this game for the first 50 days I played; I recruited over a dozen people to play, and several of those have spent money. I spent money myself to buy more character slots and was on the verge of buying more until the recent updates/patches. You’re in a very tight market and getting $40 from a player in a market where most people won’t spend a dime is amazing.

You guys really need to make this right. Word of mouth advertising is the strongest form of advertising there is…and people are twenty times more likely to bad-mouth a product than they are to actively advocate for it. You had those advocates pre-patch/update. Now you’re creating the opposite type of reputation in droves. Don’t be greedy. Roll back the costs to an affordable level, fix the scaling and you may keep me and legions of other players.

2

This ^^^^^^^^^^^

ISO progressions has always been slow but it was better than dying and having only 5 health packs to keep you playing. If they implement the idiotic idea of charging to skip it will allow those with weaker or medium rosters to play about a few games before they get wrecked by a high level team (I have seen nearly twice my characters levels in my queue and it is hours at least until your teams heal and health packs restore).

3

Sorry, I got off on a tangent in the OP and didn’t underline how the economy is toast. Edited accordingly.

4

+1

You described my playing style, as well as my frustrations, almost to a “T”. Personally for the the last 3 days I have been searching, with no avail, for a game to replace MPQ. While I have been playing random matches here and there, I no longer find it possible to sit and play for hours. Which was basically my only justification for burning up so much ISO-8.

The sad reality is that these moves made by the Developer, seem to be strictly aimed at players like us, whom they seem to label detrimental to their projected customer base. icon_lol.gif

5

If I’m a detrimental player, spending money and being a vocal advocate for the game and bringing in new, paying customers…I’m not really sure how to process that. Good job, masochistic game company?

6

The developers have completely ruined this game with the last two updates. I’ve been playing for the past four months or so on a daily basis because I have loved this game to the point that over the past few months, I have spent at least $250 (a bit crazy) on gold and ISO to improve my team, add slots to my roster, increase my character levels, and enter this last waste “elite rewards” event. With the second to last update, my daily rewards did not work for over three weeks while it showed I was at day 81 that whole time not receiving the daily reward. I sent emails to the developers, did I get an email back from them saying that they were going to fix the issue, no, did the developers send me an email at all, no. They suck me in with this great, fun game and don’t even bother to respond to dedicated players. Now they make a lot of the boosts required to beat these ridiculous high level teams cost gold which ultimately costs real money to those that play this game. This last update seems like a pure money grab for these developers, and if you want to keep progressing your characters, that’s what you have to do, pay out of your backside for the one in a million chance to get a cover to increase your characters skill set. Now they want us to pay in ISO to skip a PVP matchup, seriously, its hard enough to get any substantial ISO from replaying a mission, five straight replays results in five straight 20 ISO, give me a break. They want to balance Thor and Wolverine, great, but balance them, don’t take all the bite out of Thor and a touch from Wolverine, that isn’t balance. I am at my limit with this last patch, maybe the developers can take a backseat with this money grab, maybe the developers can respond to their customers emails when their customers are having issues with their game, and maybe the developers can actually listen to what their customers want and more people will keep playing. When I play one mission today, the last day of their week long event and my ranking is #23, that tells me that the developers really dropped the ball with this last update and are losing players fast.

7

They claim they do care but I am waiting to see if they field the tough complaints. Honestly if they really do care they will be addressing the many threads like these and letting us know they will find a better way of doing things with an idea of what that would entail.

… And yes 250 bucks if friggin nuts icon_e_surprised.gif

8

The iso-8 & HP reward system was as close to perfectly balanced as you can get. If you used 3 boosts per match in tournaments you had a very slow attrition rate, but it was still a choice between buying boosts and leveling your hero/villain. I could power through a tournament, hit the top 45, lock for 100hp, and recoup my hp as well as get a few covers I hadn’t had before and it would be worth the iso cost to me because I got a new cover or three. I would then go do some missions or events to reload my ISO to a point where I could level up some heroes and save some for boosts. It was a great balance and it was truly fun and it kept me coming back for more.

This. I was playing, and advancing, at a reasonable (if slow) rate. Progress was made. Net profit happened. Now I can’t even play the tournaments - for what, to be presented with an impossible mission when I finally manage to win one fully boosted?

9

They are ruining their own game icon_e_sad.gif

I have spent a lot of money in this game beacuse I was having fun, I love Marvel and this was a very good an addictive game, and I always could choose when to spend money, but now every thing seem that is designed to cost you money. All the mechanics of the game seem off and a money grab :S

Example:
Shields → Good idea to solve a problem, and with a good price. Then in just a week they raise the prices of all the shields and now you can use them just if you spend a ton of money. Now, instead of solving a problem (losing a lot of points of your score when you are attacked in your sleep or when you are working/studying) they are a just money grab and can be used by players with a lot of money. (P2W ?)

I am waiting to see what happens in the near future, and I hope everything gets better, because I loved the game and I want to keep playing, but everyday is getting more difficult to justify all the time I put into it.

10

Bear with me as I (hopefully,) explain a thought about in-game currency…

I point to Guild Wars 2 as a model of a game that, (as an MMORPG,) has 2 forms of currency. (also, though, as an MMORPG, they do NOT charge a monthly fee… one time buy, and that’s it…)

GW2 has gems, whereas MPQ has HP
GW2 has the common “gold/silver/copper” standard, whereas MPQ has iso8

Just like MPQ, there are reasons to want the gems in GW2, but for items you WANT, but do NOT give you an unfair advantage. (an example would be an unlimited use gathering tool… sure, once you buy it, you never have to buy a generic again, but if you choose not to buy one, you can spend G/S/C to purchase limited use ones at very little cost.) Gems will not buy you a better set of armor than what’s available to buy or create within game. It WILL however, buy you “skins” to alter the look of your armor to stand out, but does not affect stats or such.

Now even with no subscription costs, they maintain a “living storyline,” that adds new dynamic events every two weeks… And while other things factor into it, I’m sure, the fact is, the money they make is by offering stuff people*** WANT, but are not FORCED ***to purchase to keep up… You can purchase gems within the game or buy “gem cards” at retailers…

But here’s where it gets interesting and MPQ could take a page from… There is a Market where the gold you earn can be traded in towards gems… Sure, it’s a fairly bad exchange rate to get many gems from even mass quantities of gold, but the option is there for player who don’t wish to spend any dollars whatsoever… And also has the side effect of when a player sees an item ending in 2 days, and its something they TRULY WANT, even if they’ve said before they wouldn’t spend any real dollars, when they realize theyre going to fall short in the exchange rate, they’ll impulse purchase the gems with real cash.

Instituting an Iso8 for HP swap, even if costly in Iso8, will allow people the chance to have a goal, go back to the repetitive missions on occasion so they can earn some HP to join in the “entry fee” tournaments, or any number of things that cost HP ONLY.

What MPQ needs to get through to themselves is that forcing players to pay to stay competitive, especially in a game that also caters to casual players is a sure way to leave a sour taste in their fans’ mouths. Offering services that make people WANT to spend money is a way to make people all warm and fuzzy… I’d pay a REASONABLE fee to say… allow me to select from 3 chracters in the Heroic or current heroic tournie… Not to automatically GET, but say UP my chances at (using the current Heroic Mode Oscorp weeklong event) receiving (after selecting 3 characters) Daredevil, Invisible Woman, or Spider-Man… If that’s far too specific, I’d still pay for a 50% increase to receive a NECESSARY character to the current event (Nothing frustrates me more than having to not finish an event because “Hero X” must be part of this team… Then dropping some HP in hopes to get him, only to receive yet ANOTHER flipping BagHead.

You could charge 25-50 HP for an increase of say 50% increase in Iso8 rewards for 3 days (geared for the casual player who doesn’t have much time to spend in game, and doesn’t care much for entry fee tournaments, but would like the chance to feel like they can enter the free tournies with a team that they could level faster in their limited playtime.)
Or similarly, for players that wish to restock their powerups, a 25-50 HP cost that increases by 50% the chance of an EXTRA drop of a selected powerup for a couple of days…

(I’m not really thinking too hard on this, but trying to think of WANTS, rather than necessities… I may be totally wrong on some of this as far as balancing…)

It seems D3 atm is set on doing one thing: nickel and diming players to death with this last patch.

11

Very well put, +++++1

I bet Devs noticed a decrease in micro-transaction sales, or is simply doing bad financially. Now they’re taxing the players for it. Guess what, f’ you. I’m not spending another penny on your game until I know I’m getting my money’s worth. Gave you people more than enough already, for nothing. Better yet, give me my damn money back! icon_evil.gif

12

Well, it’s quite possible that they have actually observed an increase in sales, because there was a sale both on steam and in-game right before R47 hit. It would be incredibly sad but also not inconceivable that the Devs will react too late and their game will die before they do something about it due to the recent uptick in sales.

On the other hand, it is also possible that the Devs know their time is up, and offered those sales as a last ditch to suck as much $ as possible before jumping ship. I surely hope this is not the case

13

I’m not yet ready to throw in the towel totally with this game and the Devs, but the time is getting shorter… The game has become exceedingly difficult to win matches you normally would have had no second thought about playing… And now, you almost HAVE to have boosts against similarly leveled characters. This went from a game where you could play without worry for an hour or so, maybe longer, before having to set it down to replenish health and health packs. I’m hoping they add in some sort of exchange between iso8 and HP… I REALLY want this game to continue on, but the way it’s going, it’s looking like they’re stuck in their greed so far that they’re unwilling to allow the players to WANT to spend their money, and are instead almost DEMANDING you spend your money to stay relevant while playing.

Regards

14

You’re right. MPQ was excellent before the patch and I’m sure many people were dumping some cash on it, including myself. Sales probably went up and they got greedy.
If we see another sale, it’s probably the latter. Devs will probably try to suck out as much cash as possible before moving on to another title to rip players off with.

15

After some introspection, I have to thank the MPQ staff for implementing this massive inflation.

Much like when there are huge ‘sin’ tax hikes on cigarettes, booze and other luxuries, users are forced to reassess priorities, and many quit. Some can’t deal with the loss of addiction and find something else, and others scale back their usage. Count me in the latter category. Since I refuse to pay real cash to win and I’m not the hard-core gamer I once was so I’m not hunting for a new ‘fix’, I have scaled back my activity with this game significantly. I focus more on pure strategy to win. I lose more, and when my heals are out, I’m done for several hours (or the day, or whatever). I’ve been pouring all of my ISO into leveling as apposed to spending it on boosts to win above my level (and win nice prizes), and when I do get boosts as drops, I hoard them, because they’re simply too valuable to use. This game has been turned from an all-consuming addiction that I could afford to a fun side distraction that I don’t even bother with if there are other, more pressing issues.

So thanks again, developers & executives, from my wife, my kid, and your moms. I spend far more time with them now without my tablet in my face. If you were to lessen your taxation, I may consider venturing back in to addiction territory, but for now, it’s simply too expensive.

16

Well, this is funny. I came online (and signed up, I might add), to do one thing and one thing only… Complain about the new stupid update… But it seems the update has been covered. I was going to throw my 2 cents in, but I figure it’s covered.

So, basically:

Change characters back to how they were… If people complain about them being over powered, then let them cry… They are obviously bad players and sore losers… There are always characters that can beat them, like Black Widows stealing or stunning abilities… Storms strike tiles deal extra damage… Hulks ability to change a few green tiles… Loki and his illusions… Captain America and being able to regenerate AP.

Prices need to be changed back too… The whole point of them were to help during a fight… Why over price them but keep rewards as they are, 140 ISO for a win, but 1 power up costs 200… Whatever!

Level 200 mobsters haha! Enough said I think!

Since the same update however, I’ve noticed A LOT of lag when downing an enemy, and in some cases when matching a tile which makes multiple tiles match… I’ve also had times where the game randomly restarted during the rewards page and I didn’t receive my reward.

I could go on, but I’m just adding my opinion that the game is no longer fun and has been ruined. It’s stupid. It’s good for my girlfriend now though, my iPhone isn’t glued to my hand lol, I guess you have too much money, want this game to die or have a really crappy sense of humour, to want everyone to quit playing… I once played this as much as I could, now, I’m lucky to claim the daily reward.

17

I can’t agree more with all. Before the patch I was able to even win any tournament of my choice just for the price of my sleep. Unfortunately all the missions and PVP and the reward logic was set to force players to play most intensively by the end of the event. Most of the events ended at midnight in NY, which is unfortunately 6 am down here in Central Europe. So winning these was pretty hard, anyway it was still possible.

Now, even with the maximum boosts it’s just the question of luck, whether I will be able to complete a mission. Now I have less than 50% success rate. In PVP, I have tried the lightning tournament recently and even if I fought through whole 90 minutes, won all battles within 3-4 minutes, still it was not enough to be better then top 500 with 250 points getting incredible reward of 250 ISO. Well surprisingly the leader had over 500 points in 60 minutes, which means he was able to win 1 battle every 3 minutes with absolutely no retaliation with the equal opponents. I would like devs to explain how this is possible as this raises a doubt. But like all others, my “appreciated” comments were left without any reaction.

So, not just the price of playing (and that does not mean winning, just being able to play) comes to hundreds monthly now if you really want to have fun, but even for money you’re not going to be entertained but pissed off instead. I have paid over 300$ in December and January, now I consider that a wasted money. I simply do not understand, who is their targeted customer. Really rich people don’t play these games and for others it’s not worth the money they ask for. I will wait few more days and if there will be no change in devs attitude, I will uninstall and forget, even if I liked it a lot.

18

Bump - because it was true back then and is still true.