Why I am temporarily quitting PVE

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Yep, it’s one of those posts. The type which everyone at some point either thinks or writes… I had an IQuit match with PVE and yelled into the mike…

First let me set the scene, when I first downloaded this game and began playing (after the prologue that is) I was primarily (actually - solely!) a PVE player. Once I realised that I could grind away and get some good prizes as a new player I dedicated my time solely to this game mode. I didn’t mind grinding, I didn’t mind the time it took and I didn’t mind the difficulty. Of course I didn’t, I was in a noob bracket. These days I am most definitely in a pro bracket.

The first point : The enemies suck harder than Sasha Grey on a performance art marathon. I’d rather fight boosted 3* characters than 1*, why? Their powers scale more fairly. A nuke for a 3* generally costs a decent amount of AP thereby making the fight more fair. a 1* nuke costs 6AP (we all know who I’m talking about) that’s two moves - or more commonly 1 with a cascade. 1-2 moves (at best) and that’s a character either dead or half dead. Getting better or more characters doesn’t help either since scaling just means that the juicy 5* you have been raising since it was a wee 1 cover is still less effective than a OP 1*. I wouldn’t even mind if they picked different 1/2* characters to fight against but no - they pick the ones with the cheapest abilities on purpose.

Point 2: The prizes… are not all that amazing and right now - I don’t need them. When you first start the prizes are good because it’s a good way to get some event tokens (or MHawkeye tokens as I like to call them) and some HP to build up your roster slots. In the first month I even earned a couple of LT’s due to my proclivity towards the aforementioned grinding. Now I don’t need the HP so much and while I would love to build 58 MHawkeyes I think my roster slots might be better used in a different fashion. So that leaves LT’s… they are useful for someone with a low amount of 4/5* character covers but necessary? No. So there is nothing to draw me into PVE at the minute in terms of prizes.

Point 3: PVP has more variety… this probably seems like a dumb statement considering the amount of Fistbusters/JeanBusters/IceBusters…just busters in general, but by comparison to PVE it is a change of scenery. I like the fact that I can fight different characters other than dark avengers all the time and PVP provides that. The battles aren’t stale since my mid transition 3* roster can’t just steam my way through PVP it forces me to be strategic and actually play a puzzle game as a puzzle game - unlike PVE which simply forces me to be the cheesiest player on earth and pick the same 3 characters and use the same tactics (is it possible to set up a bot to play for me? I’d love PVE then!)

Point 4: PVP has more useful prizes… at my level. I need the covers, even just earning one cover for a character is way better than spending 7 days earning one LT for a bunch of characters I can’t even use yet (7 DAYS?! ridiculous amount of time to run a PVE unless it’s growth industry structured). I can pick up covers, HP and the occasional CP as well. This can all be attained in about 10 victories or so, compare that with the current Hulk PVE whereby 10 victories granted me the ‘prize’ of some critical boosts and 9 x 20 iso… not rocket science to decide which is a better use of the time.

Point 5: Attainability/Viability… The prizes in PVP are far more attainable. Right now in the thor PVP I sit 5th with 10 hours remaining, I won’t stay there as I don’t shield but should still finish t25 for 2 covers, some HP and 1 CP. did it take a lot of effort? No. It took 13 wins (and 1 defeat) with my fairly modest team and some selective matching, it was not stressful and I enjoyed having to think about my moves and team selection. Right now I am at a point where my team is a viable team in PVP (offensively) and I can start to earn good prizes - one month ago this was not the case as 400 points was about my limit but now PVP is by far a much better use of my time on this game.

These reasons mean that it will be very unlikely that I play PVE for the next few months until my 3* roster is finished and I start needing LT’s for my 4* progression. It’s a conscious choice but one which has been heavily influence by how torrid PVE is at the moment. It can be fixed and has been suggested in the black hole titled “Suggestions” by many many many posters including myself which sadly has been completely ignored in favour of making even more characters which nobody asked for or wanted and even more events featuring dark avengers.

I won’t be returning to PVE for quite some time now (even for new character releases) unless one of the following criteria is met:-

  1. The dark avengers are removed from the enemy list - or- their AP costs start scaling with their level.
  2. the prizes in PVE start becoming worth the effort and frustration
  3. I need LT’s

I imagine that criteria 3 is the one which will happen first, which is sad for me (because I am effectively only playing half a game) and sad for D3 (since the more modes I play the more likely I am to want to spend money).

2

Agree 100%. The only point of PVE was to get a new 4 star, but I can also wait a little longer and get that new character in PvP when it’s offered at the 1k level. PvP is all I’m doing now because I can’t justify the amount of time it takes in PvE for rewards I can’t use.

3

Skip at least 1 in every 3 events, preferably 2 in every 3 events and join late.

As far as covers are concerned you get better rewards for less time invested. Overall ISO and HP take a hit, but I’m guessing you’ve got enough slots, especially if you sell off some of your MHawkeyes. icon_e_biggrin.gif

4

You can also just watch the bracket threads and jump in PvE on the last day and get the same 4* you’d get for joining early. Which is definitely the biggest issue with PvE. (just ahead of the giant time suck)

5

PvEs need to have rewards on par with PvPs. That means a 4* progression reward cover and then a Legendary token at the end. Why do a 7-day PvE for just a Legendary token? That makes no sense.

6

It’s kind of interesting how the relationship with PVE and PVP evolves for a transitioning player:

-When you start, PVE is more interesting than PVP. Storylines, lots of prices, not much effort required to get something out of it! PVP, on the other hand, is short, thematically sterile and more competitive/punishing on your nascent roster.

-When you arrive to the 3* transition you suddenly realise that a single 2.5-day PVP gives more or less the same placement rewards as a 4-7 day grindfest in PVE. BY then you have experienced most of the storylines and will start seeing repeats, while your roster is now much more capable of taking the PVP challenge, which is helped by the increased savvy you’ve gained.

-When you arrive to the 4* transition, you realise that PVP is mostly pointless. You have most or all of the 3s so placement rewards are useless to you, not to mention the underwhelming reward that a single, highly random Legendary Token represents for a whole season of effort and shield-expenditure; the only reason to play is for the 1k progression reward, or the 1.3k one, if you can achieve it/be bothered. On the other hand, PVEs releasing new characters are the single, most immediate and efficient way of acquiring several covers of a 4. After that, it will be a combination of a year of rotating 1k progression rewards, significantly good luck and/or spending some HP.

7

But if I sell one of my MHawkeyes I’ll only have 57 left?!

It sounds like a joke but he really is by far and away the most common character I get from event/heroic tokens. I stopped tracking it a while ago but at one point out of 81 possible tokens MHawkeye accounted for 39 of them

Now that my roster is usable in PVP I can focus my time on there, my tactics so far seem to get me t50 at least in every event. Don’t join until there are about 14 hours to go, attack as fast and as often as possible and this usually nets me 700 points or so without shielding before I get hit and start losing some then I just do the same in the final hour of the comp and finish with 800 points or so for t50. I think to push higher I’ll need to use shields but for now that’s not necessary

8

PvP is 60 hours for 100HP, 3100 Iso, a 2*, 3* and 4*, 3 event tokens and one Legendary. (if you can get all the rewards)

On par with that means a 7 day PvE needs ~8700 Iso, ~275HP, ~3 covers of each rarity, ~9 tokens, and ~3 Legendaries.

It’s currently 4800iso, 75hp, 2/1/0 by rarity, 2 and 1 tokens, respectively. The Iso is definitely offset by the actual mechanic, and can be argued the HP/tokens are offset by the existence of the sub rewards (at least for some).

The specific covers and legendaries are definitely out of whack though, and that’s where PvE ultimately loses me. If there were at least one guaranteed 4* in the progression, I’d be much more likely to play when needed.

9

Technically, there are sub “progression” awards, but not everyone gets the same amount for the same effort (the 4 non-20 ISO awards for each node). Depending on the event, that could mean additional covers, tokens, HP and/or ISO without placement concerns. There is also the ever elusive (aggravating?) Command Points that appear to be the new standard in the reward structure of two nodes of each sub - currently the only source not tied to placement or purchase.

While PvP also offers lower rarity covers and decent ISO rewards from completing nodes, if you are attempting to place well in PvE, you are likely to complete more individual nodes, and thus more likely to get the better rewards in aggregate when trying to calculate a Reward Per Hour value for a particular event’s play window (not effort/resources spent).

But I will say I agree PvE rewards need improvement, especially seven day events. Unless you have alliance responsibilities, it is easy to make the trade off of variable sub rewards over a better chance of placement in a late join bracket.

10

Kind of lost me at this point. Beyond 800 points it’s almost impossible to find anything other than a Jeanbuster or Fistbuster, that I actually see more variety in PVP fighting different types of goons in addition to the standard Dark Avengers, plus the occasional outlier PVEs like DP vs MPQ. Last season after hitting 1k progression for the first time I thought I could make this a consistent achievement, but this season I haven’t done it a single time after falling on the final step twice in the first 2 PVPs, meeting a wall of either Jeanbusters that I definitely won’t touch with my 3* roster, or a whole bunch of low point Fistbusters that would probably sweep me away for twice the points immediately during retaliation, and not to mention losing 75 points for every 40 gained every time I successfully take down a Fistbuster. So much for variety when I see only 2 possible combinations at high scores, at least in PVE sometimes they do mix those damned Dark Avengers around for different combinations

Right now I’m disillusioned to the point that my main objective is not to build up my 4* roster, but to max out every single one of my 3*s to max level, and I’m not even sure what I plan to do when I eventually finish maxing everyone. I can’t get 1k progression in PVP consistently enough (the only time I did it semi consistently was when XFW was buffed), and though anything less than a 7 day PVE can still be handled, scaling is getting to the point where I can’t really be bothered with PVE anymore as well. My MPQ schedule for the past 2 weeks now reads: morning DDQ on the way to work, end of game time. Repeat next day, I can’t even be bothered with anything else unless they’re doing stuff like Growth Industry or Amadeus Inferno.

11

This was my point about thinking more strategic. I don’t see an impassable match when I see jean busters, I see a problem that needs solving. My roster can’t handle beating these in every match but I have taken down a few of these teams with my mid-transition 3 star team by being strategic, instead of just thinking “Well that team is more powerful than mine,” I think “well what does this team rely on that I can deny,” You can always deny one thing against any team - AP. I should not be able to beat any jeanbuster teams with my roster but I do because I can play an effective denial game. Yep it is slow, yep it can be annoying but with patience it can be done. If you even have a 3 cover OML (mine is 2 cover) you can easily match damage a jeanbuster team to death while denying them AP to fire powers, if you don’t there are plenty of stun/ap denial characters which can also help you achieve this goal in 3* tier.

People are often too focussed on finding a character more powerful than the one they are facing, my approach is to simply find their weakness and exploit it. It’s not 100% effective but it is challenging and does require thought. Fighting a OP team of Dark Avengers however requires zero thought, planning or fun.
I have spent many matches trying to match damage OP Juggs to death just for the challenge (level 243 is my record in case you’re wondering) and I think this has given me a good denial game but now my patience with fighting Juggs + Daken/Ares has run out. I’m tired of it, there are no more challenges I want to set myself for fighting the same team that CANNOT be denied because their powers are so cheap.

In PVP you can play a denial game against any team because nobody is rocking 3 characters that can do 4k damage with 6AP like PVE battles.

12

Funny I should read this post just now. Two hours ago I hit the burnout wall. No more Daken and Moonpie for a while thank you. I am amazed to hear you get Mhawkeye so much. For me 2* cap and 2* marvel. In fact when I finally received my reward a few hours ago it was ms.Marv again and that ended it for me. The only high side to that is I didn’t have to look at another Moonpie cover for the millionth time

13

You are right, and that’s how I got my 3 jean grey covers in about 45 mins of work. But those threads don’t seem to post as much as they used to. It appears everyone is getting the grind burnout. I haven’t joined Hulk yet, as I’m hoping to jump in near the end.

14

I just don’t think the progression rewards need to match the effort put into a 7 day event. Constantly getting 140 or 250 iso at every achievement is silly. Once reward is 50 HP then several rewards later it falls to 25 HP. One reward of 1000 iso before you hit the LT.

Likewise, they need to fix the 50/50 nonsense for nodes. Award us the prizes first, then give us 20 iso after the fourth cause we have to grind anyways since the progression points have been raised so much.

15

These are most of the reasons I quit PVE almost a year ago.

It hasn’t been missed.

16

looking forward to the day I get enough dupes from LTs to determine pve LTs aren’t worth it (again). been off of the 7-days for a while, but still play most 3 and 4 day pves. jumped into fresh hulk slice yesterday (makes it a 4-day). I had quit pve until they intro’ed LTs, then got sucked right back in.

17

I don’t exactly find Jeanbusters impossible, I’ve beaten Jeanbusters before, the issue I have with this is that in an event where speed is of the essence otherwise you’re going to get hit before you finish hitting someone, Jeanbusters are too much of a time sink to properly compete in PVP for me. Hulkbuster having high health is already an issue but not impossible to overcome, but fighting Jean means no match 5s and no AP accelerators for me, which slows down the game a lot for me, and in that extra few minutes I take to finish a fight I get hit badly. I don’t have a monster roster, XFW and NF are my only fully covered (and decently covered) 4s, I have exactly 2 5 covers spread across SS and OML, so my roster when unshielded is basically cannon fodder for all those busters out there, which becomes really apparent when I finally complete a gruelling fight against a Jeanbuster and already losing more than I gain. At least in PVE for me, I can even fall asleep while playing and I barely have repercussions, since I’m never fighting for placement unless it’s a new character release, all I miss is a refresh and a few thousand points towards the LT which can be covered back through a small bit of grinding towards the end. Scaling still sucks though, which is why I rarely even PVE nowadays except for new releases

18

1.) Is the only reason you play an event to get good rewards?
2.) Is there not a middle ground between quitting and grinding? Perhaps treat MPQ as a casual game for a bit.
3.) If you plan on coming back, you’re not really quitting.
4.) You seem to have used a lot of words and justifications, when you could have simply said that you just aren’t having fun anymore.
5.) If all the changes you would like to see are implemented, will that make the game fun again?

19

  1. I only play unenjoyable events (like 7-day grinds) for good rewards. Let’s be honest EVERYONE is playing for rewards right? If there were no rewards would you play?

  2. What middle ground would that be? There is nothing in the middle to make it interesting. I do play casually, I play PVP until I get fed up then stop. I am fed up of PVE so I stopped.

  3. This is why the title says Temporarily quitting - if the terminology is bugging you then just pretend I said “why I’m not playing PVE for a bit”

  4. I wanted to explain why I wasn’t having fun and what things could be done to make it more fun (admittedly for me but I think most would agree on my points)

  5. Yes, of course. Otherwise I would not have suggested them.

20

to me the middle ground is how I treat normal 7-day pve (non-releases). i’ll go get the 2 cp and that puts me t200 or so for a token every day and some iso in match drops (no 20iso on your first clear). nothing more, and only that if I have time. I go get the essential cp every time but the top node takes a little more time and depending what the team is, can take more resources, depending on how many times it takes.