'Marvel Puzzle Quest' 1-Year Anniversary Celebration!

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

AJBCLF wrote:

You, sir, are mistaking my disdain for the developers as disdain for the game itself, which is not the case, not by a long shot.
What terrifies me is that the game I love is in such horribly incompetent hands, that it may not be around for a second anniversary.

But the developers made the game. AFAIK, they didn't take over the project from another developer (at least not after its public release). They built the game from the ground up.

The game isn't a separate entity that the Johnny-come-lately developers have jumped into and "ruined."

To use the restaurant analogy, it's like saying "I like this restaurant, but f--- the entire team that founded and operate the restaurant."

Creating a separation between "the devs" and "the game" is probably a tidy way to suppress the cognitive dissonance between "I viscerally really like this game (for certain reasons)" and "I viscerally really dislike this game (for certain reasons)", but that separation doesn't actually exist.

Wow HM, this one was hard to understand... (and I did not)

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

As for "go to another restaurant", if there was a DC Comics Puzzle Quest (or something really equivalent) and the editor was not as greedy, I would have left MPQ.

But there isn't.

I get tired with games very easily. And I get stuck with MPQ...

I think we are all eating at McDonald's at the moment : terrible food, terrible ethics from the company, but we keep going there because it is addictive food (I don't anymore but used to).

There is nothing rational about addiction, and D3P know that and abuse it in a way I have never seen before...

How can you not be eating Mcdonalds right now when it's monopoly time??

Unknown

May I sum up this whole thread in just one sentence :

PLEASE D3P, WE LOVE MPQ, DON'T RUIN THE ANNIVERSARY WEEK. JUST MAKE US REALLY HAPPY FOR ONE WEEK (BUT REALLY, REALLY)

Am I right on this one ?

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

AJBCLF wrote:

You, sir, are mistaking my disdain for the developers as disdain for the game itself, which is not the case, not by a long shot.
What terrifies me is that the game I love is in such horribly incompetent hands, that it may not be around for a second anniversary.

But the developers made the game. AFAIK, they didn't take over the project from another developer (at least not after its public release). They built the game from the ground up.

The game isn't a separate entity that the Johnny-come-lately developers have jumped into and "ruined."

To use the restaurant analogy, it's like saying "I like this restaurant, but f--- the entire team that founded and operate the restaurant."

Creating a separation between "the devs" and "the game" is probably a tidy way to suppress the cognitive dissonance between "I viscerally really like this game (for certain reasons)" and "I viscerally really dislike this game (for certain reasons)", but that separation doesn't actually exist.

It is more fair to say, "I like this restaurant and it has been my favorite for a while, but it could be even better if they changed some lightbulbs, fired that server Tony, had some new specials from time to time and took better care of their loyal customers."

Can you see the difference between "This is nice and I would love to see it become even better and improve over time." vs. "This is nice but some things about it have been annoying me so I better throw it away."

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

AJBCLF wrote:

You, sir, are mistaking my disdain for the developers as disdain for the game itself, which is not the case, not by a long shot.
What terrifies me is that the game I love is in such horribly incompetent hands, that it may not be around for a second anniversary.

But the developers made the game. AFAIK, they didn't take over the project from another developer (at least not after its public release). They built the game from the ground up.

The game isn't a separate entity that the Johnny-come-lately developers have jumped into and "ruined."

To use the restaurant analogy, it's like saying "I like this restaurant, but f--- the entire team that founded and operate the restaurant."

Creating a separation between "the devs" and "the game" is probably a tidy way to suppress the cognitive dissonance between "I viscerally really like this game (for certain reasons)" and "I viscerally really dislike this game (for certain reasons)", but that separation doesn't actually exist.

Your logic is flawed.
You are saying: they created an awesome game, therefore every single decision they make and every direction they take the game in will also be awesome.
I am saying: I love the awesome game they created, but that excellence is eroding as a direct result of the developers actions.

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

May I sum up this whole thread in just one sentence :

PLEASE D3P, WE LOVE MPQ, DON'T RUIN THE ANNIVERSARY WEEK. JUST MAKE US REALLY HAPPY FOR ONE WEEK (BUT REALLY, REALLY)

Am I right on this one ?

Yes you are absolutely correct, but it's more than that.
The botched execution & communication of this anniversary event is just a symptom of the larger disease.

Unknown

If this game was as bad as people complain it wouldn't even be worth the time to complain about it. People complain about this game because it's quite good but does have some rather glaring flaws that doesn't appear to be very hard to fix. I assume it's related to inexperience, but you can only have so many '2 AP Thunderclap' type of errors before people lose faith in the system. Nothing is ever perfect, but there is still a lot in this game that makes me wonder how things could've possibly made it past the test server, and it isn't even like a philosophical difference, like say in a MMORPG some dev think his pet class killing people in one hit is totally okay and everyone else just need to L2P. That is actually understandable. For example we know Sentry's powers are excluded in the TU list for AI because they're too powerful, so they clearly know he's too powerful, so why haven't they done anything? Last I heard they're still monitoring his usage, but what more evidence do you need to be convinced that he's overpowered in PvP?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

If this game was as bad as people complain it wouldn't even be worth the time to complain about it. People complain about this game because it's quite good but does have some rather glaring flaws that doesn't appear to be very hard to fix. I assume it's related to inexperience, but you can only have so many '2 AP Thunderclap' type of errors before people lose faith in the system. Nothing is ever perfect, but there is still a lot in this game that makes me wonder how things could've possibly made it past the test server, and it isn't even like a philosophical difference, like say in a MMORPG some dev think his pet class killing people in one hit is totally okay and everyone else just need to L2P. That is actually understandable. For example we know Sentry's powers are excluded in the TU list for AI because they're too powerful, so they clearly know he's too powerful, so why haven't they done anything? Last I heard they're still monitoring his usage, but what more evidence do you need to be convinced that he's overpowered in PvP?

They don't need any evidence : Sentry is their cash machine : He enables shield hopping, for the Top Players, he makes them buy extra Health Packs... Shield Hopping is definitely expensive.

Still, Sentry is used by the Top Scorers, and not the newcomers.

The newcomers buy 10/42-Packs, the big scorers buy HP to shield hop...

HailMary

arktos1971 wrote:

I think we are all eating at McDonald's at the moment : terrible food, terrible ethics from the company, but we keep going there because it is addictive food (I don't anymore but used to).

I found it quite easy to stop eating fast food (though I still eat Burger King maybe once every 2-3 months for convenience), but thanks for projecting your addiction onto "we all."

arktos1971 wrote:

Wow HM, this one was hard to understand... (and I did not)

tl;dr - He dislikes the game (maybe a lot?), but he also simultaneously likes the game (definitely a lot). Pretending that "the devs" and "the game" are entirely separate entities is a convenient way to avoid actually resolving that emotional contradiction.

Cryptobrancus wrote:

It is more fair to say, "I like this restaurant and it has been my favorite for a while, but it could be even better if they changed some lightbulbs, fired that server Tony, had some new specials from time to time and took better care of their loyal customers."

Yep, that makes way more sense. Even "I've loved this restaurant for a while, but I hate their new floor layout and their newly revamped dessert selection, even though their core menu is so good that I'll keep eating there. I wish they'd do such-and-such instead." makes a lot of sense to me.

AJBCLF wrote:

Your logic is flawed.
You are saying: they created an awesome game, therefore every single decision they make and every direction they take the game in will also be awesome.
I am saying: I love the awesome game they created, but that excellence is eroding as a direct result of the developers actions.

Sigh. That's not what I'm saying at all, but if that makes you feel better, have at it.

I'm saying that the game is what it is: fun but flawed. It makes no sense to declare "the game" to be awesome while "the devs" are poopyfaces. Some aspects of the game, as continually shaped by the devs, are awesome. Other aspects of the game, as continually shaped by the devs, are ****. There is no difference between "the game is getting worse for me" and "the devs are making the game worse for me."

This fantastical separation between "the game" and "the devs" is utterly absurd.

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

They don't need any evidence : Sentry is their cash machine : He enables shield hopping, for the Top Players, he makes them buy extra Health Packs... Shield Hopping is definitely expensive.

Still, Sentry is used by the Top Scorers, and not the newcomers.

The newcomers buy 10/42-Packs, the big scorers buy HP to shield hop...

And yet they said many times that shields/boosts isn't where they make most of their money from. Again I'm fine if the reason was nepotism/cronyism as in "XMen was actually formed by devs and we need our way to instant win!" That'd be stupid but I can at least understand it's not incompetence. Sentry's existence severely limits the possibility of making future sales since if one guy is clearly the #1 then there's no reason to buy other stuff, so it doesn't make sense to keep him around as a cash cow because you'd still get more money by selling other characters in a more level field. People have way too much inflated sense of what their money is worth. The 2XXX PvP insanity is most definitely not what's keeping the game afloat. It still boils down to the guy who thinks the 42 pack is a great deal, and by the way that'd take an awful a lot of shield hops to match the cost of a single 42 pack sale. Not to mention the guys who have 2XXX score are kind of like the guys who voted for a single political party all their life. Their opinion/money is worth very little because everyone knows you'll always vote exactly the same way, and from the numerical breakdown it isn't even a significant amount of money for boosts/shields.

Unknown

I won't disclose the amount of HP I've spent in the last 2 months (it's outrageous), but it was mostly used on shields, health packs and rainbow boosts...

Considering many players in the top 10 do the same (and I am a tiny player in shield hopping), they must make quite a good amount of money with Sentry...

Unknown

I'd love to see their actual numbers on this. Some basic math tells me they would have to sell quite a few 42 packs to equal the HP spent on shielding. The only difference I can see is you aren't going to save up enough to buy a 42 pack through regular gameplay where you can for casual shield use.

Take 1 20 man top 10 alliance. On average, each of them buys 5 shields in an event (probably an under esitmation) for 75 , total of 7,500 per event. In 5 days that alliance has spent 15,000 . That means to beat shield hopping in terms of HP expenditure, they have to sell a 42 pack every 5 days to at least one person per shield hopping heavy alliance. Lets call that the top 10. So you want me to believe they sell 2 42 packs a day? Really? Because I don't believe that. And this is a very conservative estimate on HP usage on shields that doesn't even count the people that use WAY more than 5, or the alliances outside the top 10. Or Health Packs, or AP Boosts.

Sentry, as he is built, makes D3 cash.

Unknown

HM : I make a difference between the devs and the "managers".

The managers tell the devs what to do.

The managers suck, the devs probably not if they are not the same people.

Unknown

They announced shields/boosts isn't what makes most of their money. They've shown the HP spent breakdown before. What more information do you need? Why would the average person on this forum even have any clue what makes D3 money when the average person swears that comic packs sucks to buy even though that has consistently been the #1 money maker for D3 in every article I've seen regarding this game? If anything the average person on the forum is clearly even more clueless about what sells and what does not compared to even a normal person that plays in MPQ since the revenue breakdown we've seen from D3 is nothing like what the forum believes.

Get it out of your head that your Sentry shield hopping tactics makes you a valuable customer to D3.

NorthernPolarity

Lerysh wrote:

I'd love to see their actual numbers on this. Some basic math tells me they would have to sell quite a few 42 packs to equal the HP spent on shielding. The only difference I can see is you aren't going to save up enough to buy a 42 pack through regular gameplay where you can for casual shield use.

Take 1 20 man top 10 alliance. On average, each of them buys 5 shields in an event (probably an under esitmation) for 75 , total of 7,500 per event. In 5 days that alliance has spent 15,000 . That means to beat shield hopping in terms of HP expenditure, they have to sell a 42 pack every 5 days to at least one person per shield hopping heavy alliance. Lets call that the top 10. So you want me to believe they sell 2 42 packs a day? Really? Because I don't believe that. And this is a very conservative estimate on HP usage on shields that doesn't even count the people that use WAY more than 5, or the alliances outside the top 10. Or Health Packs, or AP Boosts.

Sentry, as he is built, makes D3 cash.

Lerysh, you have brownie points from me for your IM40 suggestion, but you are very off on your math. For starters, based off of the revenue numbers here (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/?page=2), you can see that MPQ makes a daily average revenue of $18745 a day. I think it's pretty absurd to say given this that they aren't selling at least 2 42 packs a day, I mean surely at least 200 dollars (used to buy 2 42 packs a day) must come from selling cover packs alone.

Lets base everything off your numbers and argue that the top 10 alliances spends 7500 HP per event, which is roughly 2500HP a day. Hell, lets say that every single person in the top 100 alliances does this, meaning that 25000HP is spent a day on shields. You know what, lets go even deeper and say that every single person in the top 100 alliances spends at least 500HP on shields per event (enough to hop for 2 days), which is 1 million HP spent on HP per event, or ~300k HP a day. Given that 20k HP = 100 dollars, this amounts to roughly $1500 a day spent on shields, which isn't even 10% of their total revenue.

TLDR: I think you guys are drastically overestimating the amount of money spent on shields based off of your own personal experience. MPQ has roughly 80k daily active users (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/4 ... ark-reign/). In order for them to have numbers like this, the only reason that even remotely makes sense is that you have hundreds-thousands of users a day buying cover packs and covers.

Unknown

Ok, but that "cover packs and covers" thing should lean towards covers right? Or am I the only one that thinks random chance at 42 3* covers is a dumb reason to buy something? I still don't see the 42 packs being core to their income. Evidence by the fact they have lowered the price on Heroic 10 and 42 packs to 3,000 and 11,400.

I think a major portion of that number is purchasing ISO-8. It takes what, something like 120,000 to max a 3*? If you go by non sale prices that's 780 per $1, so like $150 to max a 3* that you just covered up with . I mean, if you are spending you are spending right?

Also 80k users to hit $18,745 per day is only an average of $.25 per user per day. At 200 per $1 if you spend more than 50 HP a day on shields you are above the average.

Top 100 alliances is 2,000 of 80,000 users. Thats % spending (an estimated) 10% of their daily revenue income on shields alone. Forget Health Packs and AP boosts. Sentry has a lot to do with this number.

NorthernPolarity

Lerysh wrote:

Ok, but that "cover packs and covers" thing should lean towards covers right? Or am I the only one that thinks random chance at 42 3* covers is a dumb reason to buy something? I still don't see the 42 packs being core to their income. Evidence by the fact they have lowered the price on Heroic 10 and 42 packs to 3,000 and 11,400.

I think a major portion of that number is purchasing ISO-8. It takes what, something like 120,000 to max a 3*? If you go by non sale prices that's 780 per $1, so like $150 to max a 3* that you just covered up with . I mean, if you are spending you are spending right?

Also 80k users to hit $18,745 per day is only an average of $.25 per user per day. At 200 per $1 if you spend more than 50 HP a day on shields you are above the average.

Look at the chart at the bottom of this page: http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/marve ... au-part-1/

Now read this page: http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/15/marve ... aul-redux/

Specifically,

In previous events, our card store featured a pack of 10 cards for about $20 USD that was guaranteed to drop the featured character for the event. That’s unusual for card battlers. Typically, this is the newest, most exciting prize for players. In this latest revision of the store, we removed the guarantee while keeping the expected number of featured characters about the same. For many developers at Demiurge, this was a crazy idea. Many of us figured that the entire value of the 10-packs of cards was that they included a guaranteed character in them, but we were fairly unusual in our design here, so we decided to adjust the system. This change went live prior to the visual overhaul, and the results were phenomenal. The first event to feature this new design was a huge success despite having relatively simple content and no new character on sale. We’re not sure why players preferred this system, but we suspect the answer is a simple one: the uncertainty of opening packs is part of what makes them fun! If, in World of Warcraft, the boss was guaranteed to drop the loot you wanted, I suspect the game would be less engaging overall. Theoretically, you could apply the same principle to card battlers.

I get where you're coming from. I get your point "why on earth would I pay 100 dollars for a 6% drop rate on 42 tokens, thats completely moronic and a ripoff", as that's exactly what I think. The thing is, the whole f2p game market is moronic. Those were published BY Demiurge, and you can see that it is indeed cover packs that make up most of their revenue. Again, I see all these people talking on the forums about how "if they treat the customers right then they'll get more money!" or "customer retention is the only way they're going to continue making money" but look at the facts. They REDUCED the drop rate on cover packs, and that led to MORE money being made overall. And you know how it was successful? To this day, we haven't seen any changes made to that monetization scheme at all. If they truly were a complete rip-off and people just stopped buying them altogether, don't you think Demiurge would have done something by now and changed it back to the way it was so that they can make more money? The fact that they aren't tells me that this is obviously the way to go for maximizing profits.

The thing is, as gamers, we have our own preconceived notions about how to run a game. About how we should cater to the players, how we should be fair and reasonable, and all that junk that makes perfect sense to us. But that's not how the market works. For all we know, maybe 80% of the revenue comes from people that pick up the game, spend 50 bucks once, and never spend any money on the game ever again. And that might be perfectly fine. If they can keep their customer acquisition rate constant, run this game for another 1-2 years doing the same stuff, and then move onto another game, maybe thats the direction that the founders think they should take to maximize profits, and that might be best for the company, even though it runs contrary to all of our beliefs. I'm not saying that I agree with any of this, but all of these complaints about how its not the right thing to do just really have no evidence to back them up, and thus don't really make sense.

HailMary

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Venturebeat article wrote:

For many developers at Demiurge, this was a crazy idea. Many of us figured that the entire value of the 10-packs of cards was that they included a guaranteed character in them, but we were fairly unusual in our design here, so we decided to adjust the system. This change went live prior to the visual overhaul, and the results were phenomenal. The first event to feature this new design was a huge success despite having relatively simple content and no new character on sale. We’re not sure why players preferred this system, but we suspect the answer is a simple one: the uncertainty of opening packs is part of what makes them fun! If, in World of Warcraft, the boss was guaranteed to drop the loot you wanted, I suspect the game would be less engaging overall. Theoretically, you could apply the same principle to card battlers.

I really love this excerpt. Demiurge is basically saying "Dude, like, we know. Even we ourselves thought it was totes cray-cray from a rational perspective, but apparently people eat it up, so <throws hands up>!"

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

I'd love to see their actual numbers on this. Some basic math tells me they would have to sell quite a few 42 packs to equal the HP spent on shielding. The only difference I can see is you aren't going to save up enough to buy a 42 pack through regular gameplay where you can for casual shield use.

Take 1 20 man top 10 alliance. On average, each of them buys 5 shields in an event (probably an under esitmation) for 75 , total of 7,500 per event. In 5 days that alliance has spent 15,000 . That means to beat shield hopping in terms of HP expenditure, they have to sell a 42 pack every 5 days to at least one person per shield hopping heavy alliance. Lets call that the top 10. So you want me to believe they sell 2 42 packs a day? Really? Because I don't believe that. And this is a very conservative estimate on HP usage on shields that doesn't even count the people that use WAY more than 5, or the alliances outside the top 10. Or Health Packs, or AP Boosts.

Sentry, as he is built, makes D3 cash.

Lerysh, you have brownie points from me for your IM40 suggestion, but you are very off on your math. For starters, based off of the revenue numbers here (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/?page=2), you can see that MPQ makes a daily average revenue of $18745 a day. I think it's pretty absurd to say given this that they aren't selling at least 2 42 packs a day, I mean surely at least 200 dollars (used to buy 2 42 packs a day) must come from selling cover packs alone.

Lets base everything off your numbers and argue that the top 10 alliances spends 7500 HP per event, which is roughly 2500HP a day. Hell, lets say that every single person in the top 100 alliances does this, meaning that 25000HP is spent a day on shields. You know what, lets go even deeper and say that every single person in the top 100 alliances spends at least 500HP on shields per event (enough to hop for 2 days), which is 1 million HP spent on HP per event, or ~300k HP a day. Given that 20k HP = 100 dollars, this amounts to roughly $1500 a day spent on shields, which isn't even 10% of their total revenue.

TLDR: I think you guys are drastically overestimating the amount of money spent on shields based off of your own personal experience. MPQ has roughly 80k daily active users (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/4 ... ark-reign/). In order for them to have numbers like this, the only reason that even remotely makes sense is that you have hundreds-thousands of users a day buying cover packs and covers.

Think Gaming gives numbers for the iOS platform only. Android is not counted. So the daily gross is not that number.

Each shield hop costs 108 HP (75 shield + 33 rainbow). There must be around 10 hops / PvP (at least), that's 1080 HP / PvP / player. There must be around 300 players doing this per event. That's 324 000 HP. Health packs are not massively used IMO.

HP earned per Event is 200 HP per player.

Net gross : 324 000 - 60 000 : 264 000 HP : $ 1320 per event. 3 events a week, 52 weeks : $205 920

There are lots of companies which would be very happy to earn that amount of money each year on digital products...

Now, covers sold for a new 3* character. Same 300 players buying the missing covers. That's 5 (minimum) :

300 * 5 * 1250 = $9300, twice a month, 12 months : $ 223 000

Shield hopping and covers are about the same gross.

Disclaimer : if you think the calculation is wrong, please elaborate and avoid bashing

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

They announced shields/boosts isn't what makes most of their money. They've shown the HP spent breakdown before. What more information do you need? Why would the average person on this forum even have any clue what makes D3 money when the average person swears that comic packs sucks to buy even though that has consistently been the #1 money maker for D3 in every article I've seen regarding this game? If anything the average person on the forum is clearly even more clueless about what sells and what does not compared to even a normal person that plays in MPQ since the revenue breakdown we've seen from D3 is nothing like what the forum believes.

Get it out of your head that your Sentry shield hopping tactics makes you a valuable customer to D3.

The figures were shown before the Sentry/Shieldhop frenzy.