The reward situation

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Current situation

About 5 PVE a month and we will say 11 PVP in that same time.

35 3* characters and counting to choose for event rewards for those and now 7 4*s in the rotation as well.

Evenly distributed it will now take more than two months for each 3* to rotate into the reward chair. And even a top tier finisher in a top 100 Alliance will take 3 rotations to “finish” a character. Someone who routinely pulls in 2 covers from an event is 6 rotations (oops we are out past a year already), and someone who consistently pulls in one will be close to 2.5 years. Obviously these are gross estimates and maybe a high estimate, but when the high estimate is that long for someone who ~averages~ top 20%?? I know tokens, progressions, and DDQ all help but they are getting diluted as well. Obviously D3 wants the player to purchase HP to fill in the gaps, but how wide does the gap need to be before people say, tinykitty that its not even close to worth it.

People say the 1000 point progression reward is the best way to get 4s but to get, lets say, 9 covers of a 4 from progressions alone you will need to hit 1000, in 9 pvp events spanning a real life time of 6 months because thats how long it will take to rotate each 4* 9 times. To be clear a player who earns 4 Xaviers from his release and can get his progression reward every time it is offered will finish him in September unless they buy covers.

These are estimates and averages, but the thing is each new release adds to these numbers. Tokens and DDQ will fill in a lot of holes for 3*s but these are suffering from the dilution as well.

Widening the the reward bands doesn’t really address this problem at all we could give a cover to the top 50% and they would still take an age to complete that character.

There seems to be only a few ways to even slow this effect to keep it getting even further out of hand.

  1. More events.
    1a. Several events running at the same time.
    1b. Shorten existing event run time so we can fit more into a month back to back.

  2. More filer.
    2a. More tokens.
    2b. More progressions.

  3. More choice.
    3a. Choose between 2(or more) three stars to compete for in a single event.
    3b. Choose between 2(or more) different characters for progression rewards earned
    3c. Be able to make choices maximizing needed covers from ~all~ token sources.

It has been months since the players were in an uproar about the token side of this dilution problem, and the Devs gave us vaulting. Which long term is no fix at all. The problem continues swelling and I cannot fathom how new players feel they can even start to tackle a game like this if it really will take an elite player 6 months to max the newest 4* on merit alone.

I am no elite player but have been around a while and I see the timers. And the time keeps getting longer and longer, with no remedy in sight.
My fear is that when the time gets too long, the game will slowly die. I don’t think any of us want that.

2

Makes sense…I think it looks daunting because of the ability to get the rewards are so limited. Pve, pvp, ddq…random token draws…I believe that if they added a couple more events similar to ddq it would help. Maybe an easy and hard gauntlet where if you reach the finish line you get to pick your reward (3* easy / 4* hard) that runs in parallel with pve events throughout the season. Maybe a super survival mode, again easy / hard, that runs you through x amount of waves for a ddq like token…this would maybe run in parallel with pvp. If they run more events that are not like focused on competition but rather personal achievement like ddq the avenues for getting rewards are not only attainable by the masses but more prevalent. Something like that I think would help. Of course someone will say too many events…since they aren’t competition based…you don’t even have to do them, or be forced into it by some alliance requirement, completely optional like ddq.

Also, the ideas I mentioned I would assume wouldn’t require much development since they already have the events/modes already they just aren’t expanded out to a seasonal basis.

3

Besides that you forgot about #1 PVP and #1-2 PVE reward 4* covers too, yes, each day it passes it takes longer to get anything due to introduction of more characters.

But this is how most games work, new players can try the current releases and run after the previous ones or pay they way out of this infinite loop.

We needed a more reliable way to get 3s and they gave us DDQ, which is the best thing they could have done.. for their standarts. They said that DDQ addresses one issue of taking too long to complete a character you have few covers and what they did? They are giving the 1st cover of every character, one at a time. This does help of course, but the time it takes to a full rotation from every 3 for them to start giving the second cover (as I guess that will happed) still is way too much time.

We need a way to get the covers that WE NEED, not just an easy 3* cover that you might not need (due to having 5 of it alredy or being the one that will not me maxed or even being a character you have only 1 cover and will still take months until you get another one form events). Changing the required character from node 1 on DDQ for a selectable 3* and then give a cover for that one and locking it for a week so you cant get all covers at once (but will at least get them steadily) would be a much better option.

4

i’m going to try to keep this brief but the OP and EBmode definitely hit on the issue at hand: the current reward distribution hinders rather than facilitates a player’s enjoyment of the game.

As someone who has been playing hardcore tinypuppy style since the release of 4hor and is not in an elite alliance i am sitting on 3/4/4 cover distribution; three of which i got during that crazy pVe they ran ages ago, two from hitting top 2 in other pVes (one being the last Simulator) and the other 6 from hitting the pVp progression rewards if memory serves correct. Never got lucky with my token pulls icon_cry.gif

Finally when i’m on the verge of acquiring all 4hor covers, they release a new powerful 4* character. i really want to be excited about it since i like the X-men and Prof. X is a pretty interesting, cool character but considering my experience chasing 4hor covers and the fact that the devs are not releasing him in his own event i’m a bit underwhelmed. As the OP pointed out, with the way things are currently it will probably take at least until September before i have a playable Prof. X and that is just not something to be excited about.

And unlike EBmode, i am greedy and want the devs to actually focus more on providing better in game content. Not only for my sake but for the health of the game. i mean really i think the reaction of the forum says it all:

The release of Iron Fist was met mostly with calls for a nerf (admittedly a few were drooling at the possibilities of taking full advantage cough some might say exploit* his unique power set)
The release of Professor X is being met with calls for at the very least a different rewards system and complaints for making us grind another Hunt.

Where is the fun and excitement? Do you remember the last time the forum was genuinely pleased with a new addition to the game: That’s right Deadpool’'s Daily Quest.
And do you remember the time before that? Oh i do believe that was the initial release of the Gauntlet. (yes, i know we have a few party poopers who can and will complain about anything lol)

I think forumer fatigue of characters should not be taken lightly. One of the reasons i abandoned Puzzles & Dragons was that they simply had too many characters and i felt i couldn’t keep up (although honestly the main reason was the awesomeness of this game with marvel superheroes i <3). i keep saying it and i will keep on saying it but the devs really need to think outside of the box a bit about how to facilitate people’s enjoyment of the game.

the cynical part of me that knows that devs couldn’t even finish the Dark Reign storyline doesn’t want to expect too much. i believe that is why most of us are not even complaining that Prof. X is being released in a pVe that has nothing to do with his character or history.

the optimistic part of me that knows the devs made the awesomeness that is this game and the recent Deadpool’s Daily Quest believes that this game could be so much more.

I’m going to stop myself before i go on and on about mini-games, side quests, new reward structures, alliance specific events, etc, etc but i will say that with the upcoming Avengers movie and Secret Wars event coming it would be a huge missed opportunity for them to not take advantage of them to increase the player base. But continuing to rehash the same pVe events over and over again is not the way to go about doing it.

Echoing Cryptobrancus’s sentiments, more needs to be done at the 2*, 3* and 4* level to ensure that players feel they are progressing at a reasonable pace. i personally want to see the current reward distribution model changed because i feel slightly bad about shooting for 4* covers knowing i’m denying someone else three 3* covers i don’t need. (it’s a very small pinch but a pinch nonetheless) i also want to see fresh enemies, new stories and more villains with a true final stage fighting a big boss.

but i’ve said too much again. Anyway, i know the devs are working hard to keep the game fun and interesting but i think they should reallllllly notice how happy (almost) everyone was with a new game mode and how few people are excited about another new character. The end.

5

The one and only solution is to slow down new toons and slow it down a lot - one every two months would make sense.

The covers is one problem, the ISO is another. As it is looking now - there is no point in fighting for covers as you can’t level them anyway.

6

Don’t forget Enemy of the State with the introduction of Survival Nodes, ninja goons & Gorgon was the last truly new PvE (I don’t consider DDQ to be the same thing).

I think that was really the last time I was looking forward to playing this game.

7

OP makes a very good point and I think adding more non-competitive events is a fairly simple solution that would help alleviate the community burnout from all of these grinding and time consuming events.

I also had an idea that would be fairly simple to implement that could really add another dimension to MPQ and allow players a little more freedom to play as they choose. What if each hero had a kill counter, that ticks up 1 every time they get the kill (by match or ability) on an opponent. You could then get one cover of your choice for that character when your kill counter reached “X”. It would have to be a fairly high number, but it would encourage roster diversity in battles and add new strategies as players would want to off opponents with a certain character to get that kill counter. The one stipulation would have to be that it’s not available in prologue, because anyone can kill 100 level 2 goons in short order.

8

Other discrepancies between pvp and pve. BRACKETS, 500 in pvp 1000 in pve, this need to change, 1000 players brackets are too long to fill, many time if you start 1 hour late and you are unlucky to get a vet bracket you will never catch top players never, this is not the case whit pvp where you can enter 1 day later, even 2 days later and your score will be the same.

Small brackets or short events for pve, that is the solution for me.

500 players brackets in pve that will doubled the rewards, and whit so many brackets will be easy to get top 50,

9

I remember going to a lecture and it’s saying there are 3 outcomes for a dictatorship to remain in power:

  1. Kill everyone.
  2. Bribe everyone.
  3. Stop being a dictatorship.

Most of the mechanics in the current game is #1. Demanding more available rewards is #2. What the game needs is #3. DDQ would be an example of #3, as it is not really sufficient as a bribe but people certainly enjoyed it because it was something that wasn’t #1 or #2. And as long as we’re still arguing about whether we need to kill everyone or bribe everyone this game isn’t going anywhere either. By the way, the overwhelmly easier choice is kill everyone when it comes to games, because it costs you money to bribe everyone while it costs you nothing to kill everyone in a game, so don’t expect #2 to replace #1 anytime soon.

10

I look forward to it all the time. Im generally optimistic that they will shift some focus from character creation to content (such as EotS, DPDQ, Gauntlet, etc). Talking about my enjoyment…pretty limited as far as PVE. I enjoy DPDQ and some of the Sim (to try teams) but PVP and most PVE suck.

11

I’ve said all this before in other places at other times, but since this topic is to the point I’ll bang on this particular drum a little more.

The problem boils down to how they’ve chosen to make their money. They’ve married themselves to a revenue stream that’s dependent on cover rarity and roster expansion, and until they’re prepared to move on from that model nothing’s going to change. There are plenty of easy ways they could give out more rewards, from larger reward tiers to smaller brackets and better token odds, but they’re not going to because every penny they make off this game comes from some version of “chase the carrot”. That the carrot keeps getting smaller and father away for most players doesn’t really seem to bother them all that much.

What they need to do is embrace some other way of making money that isn’t based on choking the joy out of the game by tempting us with rewards that most people will never get to use in any meaningful fashion. There are no vanity/cosmetic items to buy in this game. Sure they’re ultimately pretty stupid, but they don’t compromise game balance and people do buy them. There’s no version of a premium service option that grants access to extra stuff, whether it be special events or exclusive characters or whatever. The right execution of any number of things could make them money from something other than strict cover rarity, and that’s what it’s going to take to open up the reward floodgates a little more.

But change takes effort and incurs risk, and right now this is a problem for us, not so much of a problem for them. Until people stop playing en mass, income starts to dry up dramatically, or things generally start to look much much worse for them, it’s very unlikely we’ll see any significant deviation in the status quo.

12

Ironically DDQ may only hasten the decline. People frustrated by the pace/difficulty of cover collection have a quick reliable way to earn something, so they do that and give the other parts of the game that much less of their time because the time vs (non)reward is not worth it to them. Too many of the casual base stops playing pvps and it is a pool of mostly veteran players competing for the same rewards with that many fewer “easy” teams around so the difficulty at the top end increases, and the gap for the transitions widens even further.

Maybe their numbers tell them this is in fact not happening, but from my purely anecdotal point of view I fear it has started already. This three star player looks at the 4* transition and sees dread, not even close to excitement leading me to contribute to the game to continue.

13

I guess that only would prove the playerbase greatly appreciates the gameplay of the achievable non-competitive format of Deadpool Dalies over the cutthroat PvP and the over-9000-scaled PnqvE (That’s: “Player not quite versus Environment”). Or to put that in other terms; they prefer that tiny bit of daily fresh content over the majority of the game’s longer term status quo of grinding and competing.

That means the devs can either take it away and force players back to the regular format (and suffer humongous backlash and basically killing off the game), or they can adapt the other content to be more attractive.

14

Some additional ideas.

Retire characters. Throw them a party and give ~everyone~ 15 covers of that character and HP equivalent to a roster slot to keep them around (absurdly wishful thinking but hear me out). People can still level them up and use them (or sell them off forever) but they will never be buffed or featured in any way ever again. Maybe tie this to daily rewards so day 100 you get IM40 and can play with him to your hearts content, day 130 Have a fully covered beast, day 160 here is your GSBW.

Clear some people out of the pool essentially but don’t remove them from the game. Keep them in a fashion that lets people have access to the oldies, but never requires people to have them.

Retired characters will be removed from tokens, removed from event rewards, never featured, never in a required node. Iso will be the limiting factor by a mile. No new player will be able to level ~all~ the retired characters they get but they can pick the ones they want to play with and work them up. Continue to release new and exciting characters, and let power creep do its inevitable thing so those who fight for and earn the new will continue to have the edge over the new guys but the new guys wont be bringing broken sticks to a gun fight either.

Hype up this change and call it the NEW MPQ or some nonsense but don’t keep expecting people to want to collect all the covers of every character till the end of time, it is unsustainable.

15

I actually think we might see the opposite… lower tier players are “going casual” and entering both PVP and PVE contests to play a few battles, get some iso, etc., but not feeling like they need to grind for top awards. That’s what’s happening with me and my playgroup. We’ve stopped worrying about top 150 and just play for some tokens and some iso. That leaves whoever I used to race with for the top 100 cutoff free to get it that much easier now.

DDQ is only 5 games a day… why not do a few nodes of the Hunt afterwards just for fun? Some people still play this game for fun, right?

16

I am genuinely glad to hear it