Thoughts of Frustration from The HP Suck Guy

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

It’s been a long time since I’ve had much to say of any consequence here on the forum. Not that anything I’ve ever said really mattered that much, I was just more vocal previously. But, I’ve been thinking a lot on a lot of things about the game and really wanted to get them all out here.

For those that do not know me, I’m a long time daily player. I’ve been a commander of S.H.I.E.L.D, launched the Fallout alliance, played with Deadpools Tacos, then helped to rebuild a few teams since I’ve been playing, DPRises and SoyGreen included. Now, I’m actually with X2 in game. I was playing and on this forum before Seasons started and can remember a different time in the game. Beyond that, many may know of me because of the HP Sucks series that I create. (and thank you to everyone on here, facebook, etc who have thumbed up and/or commented - I am honored and greatly appreciate it!)

The purpose of this posting is something I’ve been really thinking a lot about lately. Frustrations. The issue is, the amount of frustrations are growing, not decreasing. That’s not good.

Point blank, I love this game. Actually, I USED to love it. Now, it’s more about the community than the game itself for me. You may think that doesn’t really matter, but it does to me. I admit, I do tend to get bored of a game from time to time. But with MPQ, it’s not about boredom. I’m not bored of the game, I’ve just have grown to dislike many aspects of it.

I started playing this game because I’m a fan of Marvel, of comics, of various characters, and because it was a match game. However, I don’t play this game because of the amount of characters in it, the constant new releases, or the art of said characters. It’s nice to have, but not the reason I continue to play to this day.

Due to that, I have put in a considerable amount of time, even money, into this game. I have long believed that if you enjoy playing a game or an app, it always helps to support it - either with your time, your dedication, your loyalty and even financially as well. Running any business is hard, expensive, stressful and can be riddled with complications. I know this first hand as I started my own company in 2003 and have run it since, not to mention before that, 15+ years working in my career, a great deal of which was in management.

However, knowing how much time I have put into this game, and the amount of money that I’m sure is most likely the most I have ever spent on any game… yet, I still sit here, waiting for replies to tickets regarding what I feel is ISO and HP due to me, covers due to me, ISO/HP due to the alliance I play with about something that happened weeks ago now. The last reply from support was on April 28th and remains unresolved. I’ve sent other messages about it - still, no response. Why?

Further - things like the Ultron event. I was on a team of various xmen, and together, we all finished round 7 - then some went to our original alliances to try helping them finish round 7 as well. However, I did not get the so-called “compensation” of the Ultron 10 pack, like others who did complete Round 7 got. Has anyone from D3/Demiurge bothered to investigate and make sure everyone who actually finished round 7 actually got said compensation? Apparently not, as I know for a fact that I am not the only one who did not receive it.

I normally let most frustrations from the game slide as - it’s just a game. I choose to play this, I’m not forced to. However, when I know that I have invested this much time and effort into something, not to mention my own money, it gets beyond the point of aggravating to be ignored about things so trivial overall.

Considering all of the changes to the game, I’ve already been backing further and further away from the game out of disappointment. But I remain, not for me, but for the people I know and the people I play with. Even when I really don’t even want to play, I still do as I know others count on me. I continue as I actually enjoy talking with others in the game and in the various chats - and I enjoy being able to occasionally apply what I actually do in real life by creating the HP Suck parody type graphics from time to time.

But that’s not enough for me to stick around forever, or to continue dumping even more time and money. I need responses. I need solutions. I do not need, nor appreciate, being ignored.

Already, given all of the changes, some of which I like, many of which I don’t - it’s amazingly more expensive and time consuming to play and/or compete than it ever was before.

  • Shield Cooldowns that really weren’t needed in the first place

  • Glitches with shields not letting you buy them

  • Snipers who can hit you from practically 0 when you’re above 1k

  • Even boosts got nerfed “because people thought it was cheating”… against who? The AI?

  • The AI has incredible odds stacked in it’s favor - constantly.

  • Scaling in PvE. Must I go on. Even after 4thor and XF are nerfed, my Business Partners in the last PvE was 395, just like it’s been as far back as I can remember. Whatever reason you claim that it’s like that, I call BS.

  • Mysterious multiple concurrent brackets in a particular shard in PvE

  • More often than not, an overwhelming barrage of concurrent events all happening at the same time.

  • Complete meltdown of servers and connectivity in major event launches, like Ultron and others.

  • Complete removal of tanking, or any means to reduce what enemies you have to face at the start of events

  • The fact that now, you MUST start something at the very beginning, even if it’s not convenient time, because that is the ONLY way you can hope to find maybe 3 seed teams. Otherwise, maxed teams from 0.

  • Is there rubber banding or not? I could swear the answer is no, but surprisingly, still seems to pop it’s head in at random times and people fly buy you - even though you completely lose sleep to hit each refresh religiously.

  • Constant nerfing of characters that you pushed down our throats as necessary to have and to level.

  • This list could go on quite a bit longer… but I digress

The nerfs are like clockwork now. cMags and Patch were a big team back in the day - nerfed, and Sentry released. Sentry and Hood become a force in PvP… Sentry gets nerfed and Hood changed… but, xForce “buffed”. Major rush by people to either get covers or to finally dump ISO into what was known as a poorly built character - because now he was going to be king. Then, 4Thor released - instantly people spotted that 4Thor/XF would be a dominate team. What happens? Both nerfed. Prof X was nerfed before release even. IF nerfed after release. Now, characters like Kingpin and Hulkbuster - how long do you really think it will be until they get smacked down by the nerf hammer? And yes… I know, I know… it’s all done for “balance”. The smart play though would have been to ensure things were balanced from inception.

All of it is classic bait and switch. I know others on this very forum have said pretty much the same thing. “Hey, you really want this! It will be so awesome!” - so, you buy into it and collect it all, so happy with your accomplishment, then they tell you that you can’t have it anymore but “Oh, we have something new you can have now!” - again, meaning you have to collect everything up again and buy into it to. That chain of events will never stop here, they’ve made that abundantly clear.

But, none of this is directly why I am posting here now. The point is, I’ve been loyal. I’ve been dedicated. But I’ve grown tired of the BS, push backs and non responses from the lauded support team. I am completely aware, that my situation may have fell between the cracks given the recent change to D3P, now D3Go. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in that. This does not mean I’m quitting, leaving my alliance, uninstalling the game, or anything of the sort.

However, whatever happens from this point forward will help forge all of my decisions moving forward in this game, how I play, when I play, and what I’m willing to invest.

You may think having a high turnover of customers is good because it keeps bringing in more and more “fresh blood”. But ignoring the players out there who have been loyal to you all of this time, supported you, talked about you and this game - this has been one hell of an eye-opener to me and will not be forgotten, nor be taken lightly. And obviously, I’m not the only one who feels this way at this point. Just look at the many high caliber players and dedicated posters to the forum that have just disappeared.

Your move guys. Remember - your boosts are nerfed too.

Is MPQ dead?
2

I had to double take and make sure I didn’t write this in my sleep. Agreed on every single point. Well written and I hope someone at D3 reads it because you are far from alone with these feelings!

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I was just about to type out a post outlining my frustrations as well.

it’s amazingly more expensive and time consuming to play and/or compete than it ever was before.

I’ve played for near 500 days, have an excellent roster, and with all the changes am just barely scraping out my wins. Every. Single. Match is to the death and costs at least one healthpack.png
if you’d like to continue using the same characters. PvE or PvP, doesn’t matter. I can no longer stomach the thought of fighting for the 1k prog rewards and the thought of playing PvE from the first opening hours makes me cringe.

The lack of communication just tells me we won’t like the truth to most questions, so I no longer expect it from them. Cite all the single instances where they post that you like, It’s rarely with clear information.

These and the other issues you mention have created a player that no longer says, “Ooh I want that!” Now, I’m more apt to see how little effort I can put in while still taking from “them”. That sounds lousy after typing it, ugh.

Things keeping me going? My alliance and my supposedly awesome roster which I increasingly see as just a larger health pool for the game to chew through…

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Thanks for the support Kev… appreciate it a ton.

Completely agree with everything you said Ludaa. All of these changes have made it so I feel like I’ve done nothing but go backwards. Almost like starting over again, but now it’s stacked against you.

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Dave,

I replied to you on FB, but wanted to support you on the forums as well so that D3 understands that they lost a paying customer, myself, for these very reasons. I appreciate you not pulling any punches so that if someone from D3 does read this, they will see why they lose so many customers. Cheers mate and best of luck to you.

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Thanks Phear… great seeing you on here again. Hope you are well there.

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Well dave, I’ve been playing for a year. And I do agree with with you problems like servers going down, missed compensations should not still be a problem. If it has been so long and we are still getting this , when exactly are they going to get the act together? However our alliance did get the 10 pack compensation. Send a ticket, they are quite responsive.

The part I don’t agree on is the nerfing of OP characters. Our alliance was founded by people who don’t spend any money, except on alliance slots. Having said that, after the sentry nerf, I have not missed spotting a nerf so far. It’s pretty obvious xf will be nerfed, etc. now certainly there will be a nerf regarding professor x, kingpin, scarlet witch and iron fist. So far so obvious. And of course we didn’t spend any money on covers for them. I do have disagreements when they go overboard, but the characters they nerfed were not wrong. A lot of people are unhappy because they can’t use their op characters anymore. They don’t seem to realise thanks to the OP guys they are always using the same guys over and over again. Even now, when many four stars are severely weakened, they are using them from nostalgia. What a surprise.

My last bit will be on what kind of mpq do people want? Very fast pvps with OP guys blitzing through everything and limited rosters get screwed? It used to be 1300 to that last progression reward. Now it’s 1000. I hope they lower it again because it’s slower now. I for one am sick of seeing a wall of XF, invincible to weaker players. Or perhaps another kind of wall, where four stars trample everyone. This has changed drastically with kamala, cage etc. money is another wall. A shielding whale will always win. That’s the old formula. Or people who buy covers always win. Well not everyone can afford it. Students don’t have that kind of money.

I will conclude this with a very simple view. It should never be about pay to win. Frankly if you cant tell who will be nerfed next, and you feel you got ripped, then you simply have no sense of balance. Sentry nerf, xf nerf, you can see those a mile away. And you paid up? seriously? In that case I have several Nigerian friends who want to know you.

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Hi, thanks for the comments, appreciate it. However, I did send a ticket… several of them… several times.

Characters who some consider is not the fault of the player - D3 made that problem themselves, not us. Regardless of if you have spent money, or even if I have - irrelevant. There should be clear solutions in place to allow BOTH sides perform and to have a sense of accomplishment. If you work hard and play hard - you have every right to have powerful characters - just like you would once you were able to get all of the covers for XF and ISO for him. And of course the same guys get used over and over… because they are the best ones that give the best opportunities to succeed at a higher play level.

That is not to, in any way say, that you are not at a high level. However, the point is, there should be less nerfs and more actual SOLUTIONS created. Instead of nerfing a character to oblivion - introduce a true counter to that character. Example - Sentry. They could have introduced The Void to be his exact counter potentially making him less effective in matches against him, forcing players to reconsider their team options going in. That is called strategy. Nerfing your own mistakes is not.

Part of what has made playing harder for players like you, are some of the things I listed above. Yes - players will eventually run into some powerful teams out there. However, instead of introducing “shards” that do nothing but divide the player base and introduce stacked shards that make it next to impossible to anyone to win or impossible to score because it’s considered a “dead shard” as there aren’t enough targets of value, there was an opportunity to actually divide the levels of players rather than what brackets they would be in like now. Now, you possibly wind up in a shard with a major of high level players with scary rosters - but they could and should have made it so you would be in a shard with people of your same play caliber. But alas, more and more changes and nerfs happen trying to make it “better”, but in reality - players like you are stuck right in the middle running into these very “walls” you mention.

Keep your Nigerian friends. I do not want or have any need for that kind of BS. I have been responding to this politely I believe, bit by bit. I hadn’t even read that last part until know. At what part of my post did I say that I paid for Sentry? I did not. I already had won all of XF’s covers before he was even buffed. I had won most of Sentry, maybe bought 1 or 2 covers. Does that mean I paid up and need to be introduced to your Nigerian friends? I think not.

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If you want to be competitive in this game, spending money is not required if you put the time in. I have only put $40 into this game, mostly for roster slots and alliance slots when they weren’t free. I have never bought a cover and I never will. That being said, I have 31 maxed 3s, 3 maxed 4s, and the rest of my 3*s minus 2 are at 120+. Time, commitment and strategic play will always trump throwing money into the game for the most part.

The truth of it all is that we don’t know what the rhyme or reason of what anything the devs do is. Once they give us, well if they give us, some kind of philosophy as to what their vision is for the game and where they want to take it, I think we’ll all have a better understanding of where we stand. We may not like it, but at least we’ll know why.

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Thanks Ducky… hope you’re well by the way.

My original post isn’t about money, or using money to do better in the game. Money has been spent - for things like shield, roster spots, boosts, etc… and yes, a few covers. But at no time have a went all out and bought 10 covers for any character.

This is about not getting a response from the devs. It’s about the overall frustrations about the game. Not about questioning if I’m considering a “whale” or not, lol. Hopefully people get that, and not solely focus on one aspect of a very wide topic.

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I want an MPQ that doesn’t feel like I’m losing even when I’m winning. I want progress that isn’t slighted every other month. I want them to tempt me to pay with other means than frustration. Seriously, I have a ton of HP saved from multiple sales LAST YEAR and somehow they’ve convinced me I’ll regret spending it. I’m not sure these are possible for a freemium game. icon_e_sad.gif

Since I hate myself for posting without being constructive, some ideas

Separate playgrounds and rewards for New/Transition/Veteran players
Address the scaling issue in PvE. Lvl380 Business Partners is not in any way fun. I assume it didn’t hit 395 because my max lvl is 230XF.
Something else of actual value to spend resources on
----Trinkets, Costumes with bonuses, Crafting covers, Defensive boosts (%less damage taken, Spend Iso for insurance incase of a wipe)?
Take the shackles off HiFi and let him do more!

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Though I haven’t played as long as most - about to hit day 300 - I finally decided to back away from the game to just DDQ and jumping in when a PvE or PvP is about to expire when I feel like it.
I always thought mobile games were to be relatively light and quick in content fitting a pick-up and play model which MPQ was originally straddling inconsistently but with the latest changes it has swung firmly into a constant time sink.
Last season was pretty much played mostly for my alliance and now I can’t stand the thought of any sustained gaming session with MPQ - it’s just that painful.
Everything you touched on are factors that contributed to my weariness and now distancing from what was once a pretty fun game.

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I’ll be your 25th Upvote. Have your green post. :]

Like I said in the comment of my upvote, I don’t necessarily agree with everything you said, but you make plenty of valid points, and you did so in a polite and civil manner. I respect that.

I might respond to a few things here tomorrow, just as a back and forth, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to invite argumentative behaviour from anyone else and ruin the good nature of this post.

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Thanks very much… appreciate it. And of course, I know each player has their own perceptions of the game and how they play it.

15

great post. love those cover art.

what kills the game for me is time i need to spend in this game. i used to be about to do 4-5 matches on my way to work, 1-2 matches bathroom break. 5-6 lunch break. then do more afterwork and then play a couple of hrs at night if i am not busy and get decent reward.

but now. i can do maybe 2-3 match omw work, less then one match for bathroom break. 2-3 lunch break. and way more hrs at night to achieve what i used to have.

eventually, i just gave up on playing. you know i am all for the roster diversity stuff, but if i have to sacrifice my play time to get it, i rather not.

yet, you promoting ISO spending in pvp. on the other hand, in pve i see top 7 of 10 players have a lot of max covers but none have pass lvl 100. it just feel like i am punished for putting iso in my char for pve, on the other hand i am going nowhere in pvp if i dont spend my iso. worst of all, we dont know if they have a plan to fix this or not.

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okay dave. i know you think im just trying to be nasty, but this is what posted.

  • All of it is classic bait and switch. I know others on this very forum have said pretty much the same thing. “Hey, you really want this! It will be so awesome!” - so, you buy into it and collect it all, so happy with your accomplishment, then they tell you that you can’t have it anymore but “Oh, we have something new you can have now!” - again, meaning you have to collect everything up again and buy into it to. That chain of events will never stop here, they’ve made that abundantly clear.

  • Can you seriously tell me when for example, the kingpin sw thing now was shown, people actually bought covers? Thats not switch and bait, thats just too good to be true. Its not just mpq that has this problem. Many games do. What we do advise others is, dont put anything into both of them until the dust settles. None of us will say, hey its op, go for it. So its not switch and bait. Only the very gullible will fall for it. What you are trying to say is essentially that the game is trying to cheat you. And intentionally or not, that colored the entire discussion.

    I also think vets should have less frustrations not more. We have most covers. Most pvps we are trying to push up points for alliances , not for ourselves. Cant speak for yours but mine doesnt do pve. To try for both will be crazy. People will burn out. So we only go for it when its something we want

    But do you agree on the positive parts? ISO has never been easier. Anyone thinks DDQ is no good? 3* drawrate is certainly up. We certainly had no help in those day. Can you just say what you think has been good for the game? That balances out the discussion somewhat

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Yes duckie. I have 26 maxed 3 stars and I have never bought any cover either. I stopped being competitive for a long time because scoring high points mean you have to be using xf ad nauseam. Anything that restricts me severely I dont do. Featured already locks one slot. Now, Iam trying harder because its not so boring anymore. Much more variety at the top. And they will never say what their vision is. I suspect it will be something like, I wont waste time on people who will not spend anymore money.

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This thread expresses everything I feel about MPQ 100%.

It is too bad it will fall on deaf ears.

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Lemme just play DA for a bit here…

I don’t really see a problem with any of this.

Starting with 6AP in 2-4 different colors is simply broken. There’s just no denying it. It completely warps the balance of the game, giving players on offense an incredibly huge advantage. That’s one match-4 away from a 4k nuke if you’re running Hulkbuster, or the very real potential for a turn-one Surgical Strike or ROTP with Iron Fist’s insane pink. Boosts are supposed to be for the occasional hard fight, not a tool to make matches against similarly-leveled opponents completely painless. It doesn’t matter that it’s the AI on the receiving end, it screws with the balance of powers in a way that simply isn’t healthy.
Shield cooldowns unnecessary? Are you kidding? I know you’ve been around long enough to remember the Sentry/Hood meta. Shieldhopping was broken. The new system still allows for really high scores and getting all the rewards (one of the guys from Agent Archer put up a private guide on how to hit 1k without spending hero points while I was in there), but does not encourage shieldhopping. This seems considerably less broken. These changes made PvP better.

The nerfs are like clockwork now. cMags and Patch were a big team back in the day - nerfed, and Sentry released. Sentry and Hood become a force in PvP… Sentry gets nerfed and Hood changed… but, xForce “buffed”. Major rush by people to either get covers or to finally dump ISO into what was known as a poorly built character - because now he was going to be king. Then, 4Thor released - instantly people spotted that 4Thor/XF would be a dominate team. What happens? Both nerfed. Prof X was nerfed before release even. IF nerfed after release. Now, characters like Kingpin and Hulkbuster - how long do you really think it will be until they get smacked down by the nerf hammer? And yes… I know, I know… it’s all done for “balance”. The smart play though would have been to ensure things were balanced from inception.

C’mon, you can’t criticize them for nerfing a character before the character even comes out. That’s the responsible thing to do - to look at a character and say, “Hey, hang on, this is not okay, we need to fix this”. Similarly, Sentry/Hood needed a nerf, and it got a nerf, and it really wasn’t that long after they figured out, “Hey, this is broken”. Remember, the first player ranking Sentry was in, he placed 11th. We didn’t figure out sentry bombing for a while, and by the time every team was sentry/hood, the nerf had been announced and was in the pipeline. It took longer than it should have, and that one should have been something to show up during preliminary testing, but this also had the important detail that you couldn’t really fix it without destroying it. You couldn’t buff everyone up to Sentry levels - Sentry needed a nerf, there was no way around it.

XForce, though? Oh boy. They fucked up. They fucked up big time. XForce was above the curve. Way above the curve. But he wasn’t broken in the same way Sentry was. He wasn’t the same level of meta-defining. The difference, if you will, between Super Street Fighter Turbo Akuma and Brawl Metaknight. They could have buffed people. They could have said, "We’re going to give him a few little tweaks and buff the rest of the cast to be in line. And they probably could have seen how ridiculous he was at inception. Hell, the day the buff hit, people were already replacing Sentry with XForce in their lineups. But no, they waited months, about the time you’d need to build an XForce from the ground up, then dropped the nerf hammer on him way harder than was necessary. A huge fuck you to everyone who put in time or money building the character, and on a personal note, for someone who finished him days before the nerf was announced, a real kick in the testicles. This cannot happen. This kind of bait and switch is not okay.

20

Perfect post Daveomite. And very timely. My whole alliance (TheEnlightened) practically imploaded on Monday since a bunch of us were going to retire all at once and/or go super casual given the mounting frustration with the game. We realized we all liked the community of the alliance, and it was decided that we’d just be a super casual alliance. No pressure or goals for anyone to compete in any event. Just play for whatever you want or don’t play at all if you need to take a break. No one gets booted or subbed out for a Merc. If you want to Merc yourself out for an event you really want, that’s totally cool.

Basically D3 has squashed any desire to compete in any remotely meaningful way, so we’re just hanging out super casual. I’m not too sure that was their intention with all their changes.