This game offers too much false hope

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I was thinking about the common complaints and of course the recent true healing changes, and I think one of the fundamental problem of this game is that there’s way too much false hope going around. If every event is structured like Prodigal Sun or Iso 8 Brotherhood, your average guy will have a placement of something like 300 out of 1000 and while that looks pretty depressing, they wouldn’t have any illusion about how well they’re supposed to finish and either accept that or just move on.

But the game doesn’t do that. In almost all events you can easily convince yourself that #1 is yours to take, and then reality hits you with the massive PvP losses or you see guys coming out of nowhere in the last 2 hours in PvE and easily leave you in the dust. After all, only 1% of the people can get all 3 She-Hulk covers out of 1000 via individual placement. Saying you’re doing well in any event with 2 days to go is like saying you can totally take that last boss who you’re barely keeping up on phase 1 out of 5. If it was possible to do coordinate a live broadcast of what everyone in your PvP/PvE bracket was doing in the key stretch runs I think people will find out just how crazy the guys they’re grouped with really are. I understand they want people to think they’ve a chance to place well, but there’s no point to offer the illusion of chance when you’re talking about a prize where only 1% of all players could possibly get. Unless we start having fake players in brackets, 99% of the players won’t be getting 3 She-Hulk cover from individual placement, and 99% of the players won’t be getting 3 3* covers from individual placement in any PvP event too.

I don’t know how to undo this system, especially on the PvP end, but they need to make an effort to unwrap some of the mechanisms that makes the top prizes always seemingly in reach, because so far it seems like all it does is make people really angry when the average guy can’t get a prize that only 1% of the people can get. There’s no point to have a carrot if you know 99% of the people will never get it. Iso 8 Brotherhood was a pretty good example of how to set goals. After about a few days it should be rather obvious if you’re not this hardcore you’re not hitting the Storm cover. So either you become as hardcore as the event requires, or you can realize that you’re not going to come close to hitting 125K and thus not waste any additional time chasing something that you can’t get.

2

Insert form argument about applying reasoning for a top 1-2 finish down to just getting a cover, how phantron is playing a different kind of game altogether, etc.

3

Emeryt could tell about it.

4

Except that in any given event I would bet 30% of players aren’t even trying to place and another 30% isn’t really trying to place top 25 and are happy just for some covers they don’t have

5

I think the problem is the other way around. It seems players are too impatient and unrealistic.

They see 141 rosters and instantly think that the player either bought their roster or cheated. They think that they should be able to get a similar roster literally overnight. They don’t understand how long some players have been playing or that the game was easier in some ways in the past. All they talk about what is broken with the game. And while there is plenty, not everything can be fixed at once, and attempted fixes have to be given time so they can collect data to determine what worked with that attempt (if anything) and what they can do next.

IMO the only thing that is truly broken is MMR. My biggest issue with that is that they acknowledge the problem, but will not discuss (or at least give us some idea) that they’re working on it. I don’t mind putting up with MMR if I at know there is one end game to improving the situation and hopefully a timeframe for it. Being that MMR is key to all versus events, its hard to imagine what other matter is higher priority.

There are ways they could be more fair as far as pve goes. Either limit rb on the last 8-12 hours or rotate end times like they do in PvP. Again, it would be comforting if they would acknowledge the issue and have an end game for it.

To me those are the two largest issues. It is their failure to at least address these, if not solve, that causes 90% of angst among players. The other 10% is technical bugs and their failure to timely communicate those.

The rest is just player impatience. There has ever been more iso, HP, tokens, covers, or events available. Even scaling is doing well. Players that are unhappy they can’t come in right away and win tourneys like crazy, that’s a them problem.

Everyone else has had to work a long time to build their rosters and gradually do better and better. That’s not false hope, its unrealistic. Moreover, when they get HP they spend it on tokens, health packs, shields, etc. Be smarter, buy roster slots and use on shields only when you’ll at least win that amount or more back.

People can complain about the healing change, but there are four viable strategies for overcoming this. Most will take time to make your roster better suited to the new paradigm, but people rather be impatient and not even wait to see how the change will affect them and everyone else.

People complain about buying health packs for pve or PvP. What’s the difference between buying health packs at the end of a pve and buying a shield for PvP? Buying a health pack to guarantee your spot is the same thing as buying a shield for the same purpose.

And no, I’m not revealing the other 3 strategies I’ve thought of in only two days.

When you look at everything that’s actually better in the game right now. It’s delivering in a big way. 2 months ago, I was ready to quit, but now I’ve been having the.most fun on here I’ve had in a long while.

6

I don’t think the false hope comes from the game. If you can do math, then the odds are clear. It is the player expectations that are unrealistic.

Could expectations be managed better? Probably. On the Season tile it is clear that there are 5000 players. Every event should be that clear. Then you know what the odds are.

I usually know pretty early how I’ll do. If I’m grooving, I’ll do well. That means that everything has come together and I’ll do well. If I’m not grooving, then I don’t do well and for me that usually means not in the top 50. Not grooving happens when I just don’t ‘get’ the best way to play a character. It can also happen because outside stress is impacting my playing. When I’m tired or distracted, I make mistakes and don’t do as well. I know that so that’s when I let my Alliance know and usually there is a secondary event I can contribute to.

Of course, there are other factors. If you don’t play frequently, you are fooling yourself if you think you will place well. Are you willing to stay up late or get up early to stay competitive in your bracket? Are you willing to buy heals or shields to maintain placement? All those things factor in. Do outside stresses affect your play or do you zone in and disregard all else?

There is also one other factor that I haven’t seen talked about: are you smarter than the AI? Some of that depends on the developers. They are the ones that programmed the AI to play the characters. However, even if the developer is a genius, they cannot program the AI to play at that level. It would make the game unplayable for 98% of the population. You can indulge in the rare genius character. I definitely think Magneto would be one to qualify for that level but even giving him expanded abilities doesn’t mean someone will play him optimally.

Then there are the game mechanics. Everyone complains about things like sharding, brackets and MMR but I doubt many players even know about them - much less calculate that into how they play.

With so many variables factoring into things, it is a false hope to expect to be #1. For a small percentage, it is reasonable to expect to place high. For most, well, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

7

Well, I went from playing 2-3 times a day for an hour or 2 at a time (3-4hrs total), to barely getting 10 wins in a day accross all the events (maybe 45 minutes if I’m really lucky). Until the recent changes, I could play whenever I wanted. Now I have to play on a rotating 2.5hr schedule when my characters heal. Unfortunately, my boss and my family aren’t on the same rotating 2.5hr schedule. So instead of getting an hour to grind in the morning, over lunch break, and before bed, I get 3-4 matches in (usually 1-2 wins), then instead of playing more, I get to play the new exciting mini-game they added called “Watching health bars go up on the character screen.”

I have 41 characters:
4 star: 2 at maxxed level for their powers (level 50 and 34)
3 star: 19 at maxxed level for their powers (66, 64, 53, 41, 41, 30, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 25, 18, 15, 15, 15) and one at 27 (maxxes at 77, currently training it up)
2 star: 5 maxxed out (85, 85, 85, 85, 85) and 7 at max powers, but not level 46/85, 38/85, 23/69, 22/85, 21/85, 21/85, 21/69)
1 star: 4 maxxed out (50, 50, 40, 40) and 3 at max powers, but not level (21/40, 21/40, 21/40)

The only cards I’m missing are Nick Fury, Emo Daken, and She-Hulk. I spent a good bit of money on HP to open slots and would grind 2-3 hrs a day (in 1hr chunks, doing healing runs when I had to) over the 5 months I’ve been playing to get ISO-8. I’d win easily 60-70 matches a day for rewards (I was pulling in about 10-15k ISO-8/day) and another 10 or so for healing runs (and that all important 20 ISO-8). Now, If I can win 10/day, i’m lucky. So far today, I’ve won 4 matches. I win a match with some of my 85s, but they’re all at half or less hp when I’m done… so can’t use them again. Pull up the other 2 and get character in the 50-65 range with them. They usually die because their powers don’t mesh well or they are too weak. Try my next 3 biggest out of desperation, maybe I get lucky. Usually I dont. That’s my morning run. Repeat for lunch, and for bed time. I now get 9-15 matches in (3-6 wins per day) for a whopping 300-500 ISO-8.

At this rate, I might be able to get GSBW from 27 to her 77 max in about 9 years. (but at least I’ll have enjoyed the mini-game for hours on end).

The thing that bothered me the most is that I rarely used OBW in battles. I didn’t want her to die. I DID use my characters off the bench. I DID use new guys when I got their powers. I WAS doing exactly what they wanted. I saved OBW for healing runs only. RARE occasions would I pull her in. I never even got to get Web Bandages (Spidey is one of my 3-star cards languishing at level 15 cause I only have his his Spider-sense at level 1. But now, I can’t do that. Cause if I lose a round, I’m boned for 2+ hours. I can’t put a weaker level 40 guy with some of my 85s to see how they interact and play. The risk is entirely too great.

They have completely and utterly ruined the game for me.

More CSB:
I found out about the game because of the bar I frequent on Friday nights. I went early (9pm instead of 10:30pm) and some of the regulars were playing it while sitting at the bar. They got me to download it and play. Our 13 persone alliance is made up entirely of bar regulars who meet Friday nights and play. The bar owner even put in some phone chargers for us cause we’d sit at the bar, play and drink for 2-3hrs straight. Tomorrow? Gonna be kind of sad when we all show up, play for 15 minutes, then have to go do something else cause all our usable characters are dead or severly injured.

8

Players probably have too much expectations but I still think part of it is because the game makes it look like you always had a chance, even though of course it cannot be the case that more than 1% of the population finishes top 5 out of 500. We have had events where nobody got the top progression reward in PvE, but a lot of people actually tried to get it only to come nowhere close. How many times do you hear people talk about like ‘maybe this event will put some main node rubberband at the end’ or ‘maybe there will be some nodes worth a ton of points’? Sure a lot of that is just wishful thinking, but that’s also because sometimes stuff like that actually do happen. We even had some events where it was not absolutely imperative to play in the last 2 or so hours (Prodigal Sun).

Obviously most of the problem is from the game design, but it seems like there’s a subtle effort to keep scores close via mechanisms like rubberband so that people think they’re close to placing well. We all have seen the stories of a guy who was placing well, miss the last few hours and fell to #250. I don’t care if someone finishes that low, but don’t constantly tell your players 'You’re #1! You can do it!" when you know they’re not going to come close at the end. It doesn’t help anyone at all.

I’m not saying the game needs to be easier, or that 99% of the people should finish top 1% all the time. But if you got a guy who is going to finish top 300 out of 1000 (or top 150 out of 500 in PvP), there should be a way for you to break the bad news earlier than later. It’s not like the final placement is just a random accident. If you end up finishing 300 out of 1000 you’re probably not that competitive, but in a PvE event the rubberband will still make it look like you’re always in the running for top 10, and in PvP your peak score can easily be in top 25 or so before the general dramatic fall. I know they don’t want people to feel discouraged, but I don’t think it’s helping anyone to think you had a shot at top 10% when you’re nowhere close. The true healing change probably is aimed at eliminating some of this false hope (no heals means your peak will be smaller so you will have less expectation about your potential placement), but it has to go beyond that.

9

I dunno man, If I’m at a bar I’d want to be doing something other than playing MPQ - like socialising with the other 13 bar regulars?

Anyway, it’s all about managing expectations. Maybe it’s the entitlement generation where everyone want’s everything now but if you’re not going to sink in the time to this game, than you’re not going to progress.

10

Which 5 2s have you maxed? It seems to me that if you have at least 4 high-tier 2s maxed, then you should be able to play for a bit longer. Definitely not as long as you used to, with prologue healing, but longer than one match per team.

That’s pretty cool. Besides my sister, who introduced me to MPQ, I’ve seen literally no one else in real life play the game. I imagine it’s strange for other people at the bar to see 13 people hunched together over plugged-in phones at the counter, but that’s neat.

Nah, I don’t think it’s all a matter of “entitlement.” For many, it’s a mobile game that looks like Bejeweled or Candy Crush, but with Iron Man. It seems quite casual. I certainly didn’t expect to dive hardcore into any mobile game. When I first saw maxed 2s (not 3s, 2*s) back in January, during my first foray into the murky waters of Shield Training, I thought those were people who dropped a chunk of money to buy covers/tokens. I didn’t expect to ever get to the multi-L85 stage, because I expected to completely forget about this game after a week or so. But, I can see why more competitive people would have unrealistic expectations.

That doesn’t excuse the ragespam on the forums, because if you’re motivated enough to post on the forums, you should be motivated enough to actually read some game info on the forums. But, I think there could very well be an expectation management problem, esp since barely anything beyond the most basic of game mechanics in explained in-game.

11

Rubberbanding does shoot up considerably in the last hour to two though. I’m skeptical that anyone can score even the 2nd cover level of placement by grinding away all the RB before people do their final pushes. Even if they grind down to sub-hundred nodes, much less 1

12

The maths are rather clear. Oh, and the average player doesn’t finish 300 out of 1000, by definition the average player finishes 500 out of 1000. The average forumite probably finishes 50 out of 1000. But yeah, most people actually aren’t getting that cover.

But as you point out, the devs have done an excellent job of making a game where it feels like everyone’s at least got a shot. They’re not undoing that! It’s one of their top achievements! That’s how they get people to feel that if they only buy that one more cover, that one more shield, they’ll make the grade and get that prize.

This actually makes me surprised that they haven’t cracked down harder on people who are racking up ludicrous scores on PVP events and basically making it clear to all and sundry that unless you are either cheating or buying stupid amounts of HP you aren’t finishing in the top few, since it demoralizes people. But if the people getting those scores are paying through the nose and not hacking, it makes more sense that they’d try to just keep getting that money in.

13

Sure, but why would a relatively new player know this? Ideally they should have something that doesn’t emphasize playing during the last 2 hours, but let’s say they can’t do it, they should at least have some way to let you know that you really weren’t coming anywhere close to doing well if you miss that time. At least put a warning like “Your ranking is likely to fluctuate wildly in the last 2 hours”, or something. There’s no reason to tell a player that he’s doing awesome with his current ranking of #9 and then hammer him in the last 2 hours. There must be a better way to get the point across other than the ‘you were attacked for 200 points’ in PvP or similar result in PvE.

14

I think they’re overdoing the ‘you have a shot’ part, though, and that’s what creates a lot of the problems in the first place. You can do all the cheerleading you want but in the end only 1% of the people will finish in top 1%. Of course people do have unreasonable expectations, but it doesn’t help when the game is always trying to make you think you’re totally awesome and going to win every event you show up. I guess we’ll have to see the metrics, but does an event like Prodigal Sun and Iso 8 Brotherhood where the placement is quite clear cut have less participation than Thick as Thieves, where you literally have no idea what you’re going to finish as until the last day? Does the fact that TaT makes it seem like you could always be #1 really add anything? It sure didn’t look like it did for the forums, and while the forum is certainly a minority, I really don’t see why the majority would prefer the freefall nature of TaT over a more stable event like Prodigal Sun.

15

One word: sharding.

16

Who says we aren’t socializing? Most of use are in our 30s and 40s. We’re long past the “college hook-up” phase. We’re out at the bar to relax after the work week, drink a few beers, BS, and laugh at who got cascade spammed by the AI and lost. Last year, there was a lot of Candy Crush being played. Before that, we had Big Buck Hunter tournaments. Is there really a difference between playing a game on your tablet/phone and playing an arcade game or a game of darts?

As for putting the time in, I was playing 3-4hrs a day. Actually playing matches. Now, in the same 3-4 hpur span, I get about 75 minutes of actual playing in and the other 2h445m is spent watching my heroes slowly regenerate.

17

People keep on say they play less as if that’s a bad thing. That’s a good thing, even for the dev. It is fairly safe to say that playing the game a lot isn’t going to make you want to spend extra money on it, because the game doesn’t really have any inherent mechanism that sells for extended playing time. Health pack is deliberately priced way too high for most people to contemplate buying more of them just to play more, and they serve more as an emergency P2W tool as opposed to a recurring expense. Since the devs don’t benefit from you playing more, they might as well encourage you to play less, so that you’re less likely to get burnt out by the rather repetitive gameplay.

18

Widow, Storm, Wolvie, Thor, Magneto. Generally play magneto+storm+Thor/wolvie. I also have IM40 at level 66 (1/4/2, but only because I was able to finish in the top 10 of the previous PVE event (the Maggia one). Over the last 2 months, I’ve been able to finish consitantly in the top 20 (even won 1 outright) for the PVE events. That’s where I made most of my gains. In most games, I find PVP very boring. At least here, I don’t have to deal with waiting on the other guy to make moves (stall tactics) or other pissy things that which are common with most PVP games. I really think the PVP here needs a major overhaul, though. The “6 people hit you at once” is a bit annoying, as is the amount of points you lose. Up until a month ago, I never skipped an opponent. Originally, I never noticed the button, then the 1- bonus ISO was worth it, then it just became a matter of pride and trying to figure out the combo of chars I needed to use to take out what they were using. Now… it’s all about skipping cause I can’t take the chances any more to try and fight someone with better cards. It’s just not worth it. Now it’s all about skipping and finding the other poor shmuck who’s stuck using a level 50 IM35 or lvl 40 Modern BW cause his other chars are dead.

Exactly. When someone asks at the bar about what we’re playing, our standard response has become “Marvel Puzzle Quest: It’s like Candy Crush Saga… but for guys.”

I created this account on the forums just to post about this change, especially since the little “email” buttom on the opening splash screen didn’t lead anywhere. The rage portion was mostly about how it REALLY screwed my out of She-Hulk (I like to collect 'em all. I grew up playing Pokemon on the GameBoy and it stuck with me). I only post when I’m waiting for my chars to regen. Trust me. If I could be playing now, i would.

19

As a software developer, that is one of the least informed opinions I;ve ever heard (I’ll refrain from using “tinykitty” in my description of it). Devs want people using their software (if it’s made for public consumption, that is). Playing the game HAS made me want to spend money on it. Money to get more character slots. Money to get my friends into my alliance. Playing too much doesn’t cause burnout. Not getting new things in the game causes burnout. There’s a reason I’m playing this, and not Bejeweled any more. They are functionally the same game play, but bejeweled didn’t add any more mechanics. It became the SAME thing over and over. here, they add new characters. Those characters need collected and leveled. There are new events. New stories. I am a comicbook nerd. I like the new stories. The game play is never gonna change. It’s a standard match-3 game that has been cloned 1000 times. What makes/made MPQ fun was the RPG element to it (and it’s got Marbel characters). I WANT to play it more. I’d play more than the 3 hours a day I can give it if I could do so without shirking my other responsibilities in life. I find(found) it fun and didn’t mind spending money on a product that entertained me.

I’ve spent more on this game in the 5 months I’ve been playing it than I have on all the other Apps I have combined (~$70, all to open charracter slots). Maybe, as you said earlier, it has to do with my generaation, but we grew up playing games like Pac-Man and Frogger, then grinding for hours (sometimes days) at things like Dragon Warror and Phantasy Star. Repetitive games are fun to us as long as we see progress and they have a captivating story. MPQ is the second most played game I have on my phone; the first? Solitaire (talk about repetitive…).

I addition, please make up your mind. Do you want us to “Put in the time” or “Play less”?

20

@abmoraz:

Ah, you’re talking more about PVE than PVP (congrats on that win!). Everything suddenly makes more sense.

Save for Ares, you’ve got all the best 2s maxed. After with the “true healing” change, I’d still recommend subbing in OBW at least for MN Mags. OBW is extremely dangerous on defense, whereas MN Mags is just defensive deadweight. OBW will also fuel not only CStorm, but Thor/AWolv. “True healing” would definitely make 2 players more risk-averse, since health packs have become the only way to recover health within a single push. For me, PVP has been a game of “skip for valuable schmucks” for a while, so I suppose I’m used to it. I generally use SHIELD Training to play around with weird team compositions and test new characters, since I still have weeks to make meaningful pushes there.

FWIW, I didn’t notice any ragespam coming from you. I also agree that something should be done about how rubberbanding essentially can wipe out meaningful progress for 95% of a PVE if you don’t grind the last hour. A fellow Djangolier dropped from #1 to #23 in the most recent PVE simply because he couldn’t play the last 40 minutes of the event. I was referring more to the 9764 “OMFG true healing = D3 is evil!!!” threads that’ve popped up in the last 48 hours.