The only way this makes sense

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Having watched and listened to the struggles of many players here…from lack of iso, the impossibility of keeping up with the 4* releases, the incredible difficulty of getting good pvp placement rewards, etc…there is only one conclusion I can come up with as to why this is happening:

There has been a conscious, business decision to cater to the whales of our playerbase. I can’t fault them for catering to your cash cow, but for normal people, we need to realize that this game is passing us by and either come to grips with it or move on.

There is no shot for 3* transitioners. None. Most people will pay $20-40 in the first year of play to get HP and then get bogged down in 3* transition and quit…but hey, they got the money. So where is the rest of the money coming from? The top tier whales who will pay to stay on top.

The business is formed around hooking you early and cultivating the relationship between the top tier. The people in the middle (which is a majority) are not the target market from a business perspective. They most likely spend the least and have the highest amount of turnover. So…for those of us stuck in the middle, don’t get your hopes up for change. It doesn’t make business sense to use resources on us.

sigh

2

I disagree on not being able to progress out of 3*.

The people on this board, in particular, are obsessed with keeping up - having the newest, shiniest toy, getting the PvP progression reward to max out rosters, and max/champing them ASAP. This leads to the much-maligned Iso deficiency. You’ve got characters to max out and there’s simply not enough rewarded from events to keep up. That and the completely random 5* pulls frustrate the top-tier (or those aspiring to it).

I come from a completely different perspective. I dropped some cash on the game a few times, ending with one big chunk during the last Christmas sale to basically guarantee roster slots for unrecruited characters for the foreseeable future. I don’t remember what day I’m on, but it’s about 18 months since I started, and I play daily.

What’s that got me? All 2, 3, and 4* recruited (except Howard, who I’ll get tonight unless I miss my final node grinds). 2 of the 5s, and enough of the 1s to complete the Daily and buffer me to receive new characters without paying $ or sacrificing an undeveloped 2*. A good number of 3* champs, and I’m just now getting to 4*s that can complete the DDQ legendary.

It’s a slow grind, but it’s far from impossible. I’ve never hit 1k in PvP. I haven’t finished T2 since graduating from newbie brackets. I grind out the PvE for the CP reward and play enough PvP to get the Heroic 10-pack in the season. Since my 4* roster is just starting to approach my 3* champs, my scaling in PvE is still very reasonable, and I can usually compete with my 3*s in PvP to the progression necessary for the small rewards I get out of it.

I’m basically the person you’re describing. I’m a midcarder, and they have all the money they’re likely going to get out of me. But I’m still seeing steady progress in my roster development. Absent the recent PvE tests, I don’t feel like I’m shut out of the game. Taking top-tier requires alliance strategy, optimal play, and regular cash contributions. I’m not committed enough to do that, but the steady trickle I get from progression CP, T100 rewards during character events, and random luck keeps my roster on pace with available Iso.

3

There are basically three tiers of rewards (post-prologue). There’s competitive awards aimed at whales, 25 CP progression awards in PvEs aimed at 4* transitioners, and 3* DDQ rewards aimed at 3* transitioners.

The problem is that while the top one takes money (or lots of luck) it doesn’t take a ton of time. The bottom one is also a pretty small time investment. But the middle one is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge time investment compared to the others. Like, literally, 10 times the commitment. And they keep doing things to make it take longer.

But yeah, anyway, if you want out of the 4* transition at any kind of reasonable rate, you just need to grind out progression on every PvE. Have fun with that (pfft).

4

TC, freemium games always cater to the whales in the sense that they make design decisions based on keeping whales spending. That’s not an mpq-specific problem.

As to the plight of 3* players in the current meta, it seems very clear (and has seemed to since at least summer 2015) that the tap on 4s needs to be opened a bit. More placement 4 covers need to be given out in every pve and PvP event. Heroic and event Token offs need to be increased significantly. Right now the only way to really build a 4* roster (other than $$) is to hit 1k in pvp, hit the max prog in pve, and beat 4* few every 5 days. But only one of those options (pve) is a realistic possibility for 3* players (3s can get 1k in pvp sometimes, but I think its quite hard to do so reliably after the 3 boost nerf).

5

Been waiting for a place to post this: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 … mers-spend

The problem isn’t they are catering to whales - they’ve been doing that since day one.

The problem is they don’t want $100 dollar whales anymore - which is why you’ve seen 5*'s come about and HP buys of covers go away. Mini-whales aren’t that useful to them, they need the mega-whales to get that average purchase number up.

6

How can you disagree with him on this point when you go on to describe exactly how you are stuck at the 3* transition phase? You might find your play style pleasant, but that doesn’t mean you are actually transitioning.

You are correct - You are exactly the player he is describing. You will never progress to 4* without them either changing the rewards or you grinding the game ALOT. That’s just how it is.

Some like it… others don’t. I think the OP is just saying that players need to accept the game for what it is (Which you clearly have - for now)

7

WTF, who is playing that fire age game to have that be the AVERAGE?

8

first thought was it has to be a small playerbase group of rich guys - athletes or something. large playerbases don’t have that.

9

That depends upon your definition of “transition”, I suppose. In the past couple weeks I brought up 3 4*s to be able to complete the DDQ legendary challenge, which I couldn’t do before. I was able to do so because of legendary pulls from progression rewards and champion LTs. Those presumed wins will net me more LTs which will further build my roster, leading to more LTs. The process is so gradual that the Iso I’m earning is sufficient to propagate the process until such time that I have to start thinking about maxing some of them out. And since I’m not racing in PvP to shield, I can afford to spend my HP to roster every new character that comes out without spending money.

If a transition is supposed to be instantaneous, I’m certainly not doing that. Evolving, maybe?

I responded because the OP paints a gloom picture with very negative phrasing. It’s not like that for everyone, and I wanted to provide the counterpoint to avoid chasing people like me away from the game. Because I like it, and I think with the proper combination of expectation vs resources, a lot of people would.

10

I generally agree with Calnexin here. People sometimes forget that you can’t win this game… transition IS the game. At the end of each week/season/month/whatever, if you have characters that are better than they were at the start of that period, you’ve got new toys to play with and new fun to have. This isn’t a console game where you’re working to beat some boss to see the credits roll. If you’re pissed because your rate of natural progress isn’t enough to keep up with the whales, or because you’re no closer to “finishing”, then this maybe isn’t the game for you.

This is why I’m genuinely confused by the folks that spend a billion dollars to immediately finish every character… this is a frickin’ match three mobile game, it’s not like the gameplay is enthralling. It’s the slow sense of progress that makes it fun, why rob yourself of that?

11

That’s probably it. averages on factors like money spent are heavily skewed by high numbers because you can’t spend negative money. The distribution will be just as skewed with most of the people in the first hundred dollars zone way below the average.

12

Article on Cracked about this a while back: http://www.cracked.com/personal-experie … -game.html

Basically, the stuff you buy isn’t permanent like roster slots and covers and such - it’s all expendable stuff that other players can destroy. So you 100% have to spend boatloads of money to be competitive.

13

Interesting article, my favorite quotes:

You’ve gone from a game that was fun to play for free to a game that’s no fun to play at all unless you spend to keep up. And you will spend because you’ve been putting in 30 minutes a day for half a year to reach this point. It’s become an investment. Possibly the worst investment outside of real estate in the Pacific Northwest, but an investment nonetheless.

It’s like gambling, but with no possibility of winning. The best you can do is not lose.

I found this after seeing the chart above earlier, I was just trying to find out what the game was about and was amazed to find out that there is almost no war in game of war. It’s more sim city than anything else. 'Game of War' Is Bad - Business Insider

14

One more great quote from that cracked article:

Yes, I realize that’s the sunk-cost fallacy. Did you realize shut up?

15

Ok, last one I promise.

This is the dark future of gaming. Casual games are the most popular genre and pull in billions of dollars. They’re purposely designed to be addictive, but they’re not designed to be fun – if they were, why would you spend money to improve the experience?

16

Do you get a free visit from Kate Upton if you spend more than $550? In that case it might be Worth it…

17

This sound familiar?

But, by far, the most dick-punchingly shameless feature are shields. Let’s say you want to take a break from the game. You’re not quitting; you just need a week off because your whiny kid wants you to buy him food or some bullshit. But, you don’t want your empire to be ground into dust while you’re gone.

I never understood the logic of paying a company to not use their product but the suckers in Marvel Puzzle Quest nit only do this but also seem to enjoy doing it. I mean it like me saying to Electronic Arts “I don’t like your annual sport franchises so please take my £50, no I don’t want your games but please just take my money anyway”. It really does beggar belief.

18

Eh, it’s not hard to stay HP positive while shielding as long as you only do it towards the end of the event. The front runners obviously spend quite a bit to keep their high scores, but just because they do it doesn’t mean you have to too. I am rather pleased others are funnelling Money into the game so I don’t have to.

19

That’s the point. I still get enough fun out of progression in this game even though seeing it slowing down while I have to turn to 4* more now.
But that’s the same for all games, RPGs for example, the first levels come quickly in order to get you hooked, but later in game it can take ages to level up. But then it’s even more great.
Speed of progression is nothing I have a disadvantage from, it’s same for everybody. Who likes to put a lot of money into this has my full support icon_e_wink.gif
, I am fine with stocking up my HPs for Slots and Shields from time to time and very few purchases like token packs if felt to. Maybe around 300$ in one year of MPQ.

So I am in OPs “Middle” and I can enjoy it totally. Especially with new PVP and hopefully soon rolled out PVE changes.
It’s the mentality that if you play a game and have to be on top but don’t want to spend money - then this game isn’t for you. Or you just get happy with us in the middle icon_e_smile.gif

20

The forum is 100% not indicative of the player base as a whole, just those who want to speak out. I know quite a few F2p players IRL, and one has a better roster than i do ( he is the one who got me into playing). He did spend $50 on roster slots about a year ago.. but having never spent another penny, has a max OML, while other friends are going hard into maxing their 3*s. The only thing a f2p player lacks, is roster slots.. i don’t know any IRL that have any complaints about their rosters or their covers.. if they want something, they go for it, if not, they play causally.. all of them though, hoard CP like it’s made of platinum.