Loving Marvel Puzzle Quest! But...

Unknown

I just clocked my 31st consecutive day playing MPQ and I love the game. I am on target to hit the top 300 in the Hulk event and If I do get a 4 star Wolverine I believe it will be my 28th character. As much fun as I have playing the game though I have some issues with their business model. I have seen some other posts on this and yes this is another.

If I spend money I should get some return on my investment and the investment should be reasonable. Buying covers even at 100 and 200 on discount and getting Cap or Wolverine when they are already at max is really a slap in the face. Shouldn't you be trying to encourage people to spend money and be happy to spend that money? Or is it really just a way to suck as much money out of players as possible and trickle in some happiness now and then? I stopped buying the 200 discount covers and am about to stop buying the 100 ones also because it's just not worth it when all I ever get are covers I don't need. Perhaps it would be better if there was a multiple choice when you purchased covers. Show 3 different covers and we get to choose 1. At least then I would have a better chance of seeing something I don't have instead of 75% covers I do have.

Upgrading skills individually is also rather ridiculous in terms of money. I would like to max out The Hood. I have 1 cover of his but lets say I had one of each and was willing to pay to max the rest because I didn't want to wait potentially a year because I might get 10 more of his covers. That's 12500 HP or over $100 to max a character. ONE character. 4 star characters are double that. It's... just crazy and I can't imagine many people are forking that over. I truly believe the game would earn more money if prices were reduced and people were rewarded more for supporting the game.

Now there is also the argument of not buying anything and playing the patient game which I have no problem with at all. I would prefer this method if I thought I could get some good characters and be competitive within a reasonable timeframe. I also want to support the game though. I have always felt that If you enjoy a F2P game then you should support it with some cash. Even if it's $10. Without people spending money the game would not continue to exist.

In the end I like the game because it's fun. I may not like it's business model but I can hope for change. I can hope that the devs care about making money and treating their customers fairly. I am a live streamer on Twitch at twitch.tv/qik1 I do play MPQ on there and I have gotten some of my viewers to play the game. I don't just sit there a **** about it either. I like telling people how fun the game is and answering any questions they have and I encourage them to try it. I do also tell them that I am not a fan of the business model they use. I hope that changes someday.

Nemek

The problem with giving more for your money is that it increases the gap between the money players and the non-money players, which would in turn cause more animosity with a significant portion of the player base.

It seems like the devs are trying to balance it out very slowly, because if they go too far with how much they give out, then any step backwards will cause significant backlash.

But, I do agree with your point. As a higher-level player, there is very little incentive for me to spend at all, which is not good for the longevity of the game.

Unknown

I have come to the point I won't even consider buying the cap packs ever again it would take a disclaimer stating I am not going to see cap in packs again lol I spent 20$ just to see what's up around day 35-40 and wasted it but I learned and I'm not even going to think about it again since every single gamma token (12) was a cap and the last 7 hero tokens were you guessed it cap. Thankfully my standard tokens have be so friggin awesome I can't believe the difference lol

Unknown

Long term players know that the packs are a bad buy. Use HP for cover slots and power upgrades only. I did just buy a daily deal Gamma Bomb pack as a lark (I have more than enough HP to spare) and it was, of course, a Cap. Don't expect that to change though.

Here's the thing -- this game is F2P and it means it. You can (and should) support the devs, but the game is not pay2win. At least not unless you're going to pay a LOT. It costs $150 to get enough ISO to fully level a 3*. That doesn't count HP to improve powers if you needed that too.

Could the devs make the in game items more valuable? Yes, but at the potential cost of making the game inaccessible to people who cannot drop lots of money into it. Instead of focusing on "I don't get anything for my money", instead focus on "this game actually rewards PLAYING".

Unknown

The problem with that Zathrus is that money pays the bills. I would love it everyone could play the game for free and make the team they wanted in a timely manner. That's not possible though and it's also not realistic from the Dev's perspective. They need money to keep the game profitable. Salaries have to be paid along with a host of other things and Marvel is certainly getting their share as well. They should be encouraging people to spend money by rewarding their purchases. As for the game not being Pay2Win that's just not the case. It's most certainly P2W but you do have to pay a lot and that's what I have issue with. I don't mind putting some money into the game but I'd not gonna fork over the huge amount that's required to get real benefit.

Unknown

I think the reason why they make it 100 dollars to max out a character is because they don't want you to do that. They want you to play (and earn rewards) and pay from time to time.

If they made characters cheap and affordable, then everyone would buy the most effective ones and burn through all the content in a few weekends. If you don't have players playing, then you don't have much of a game.

Eddiemon

Qikone wrote:

The problem with that Zathrus is that money pays the bills. I would love it everyone could play the game for free and make the team they wanted in a timely manner. That's not possible though and it's also not realistic from the Dev's perspective. They need money to keep the game profitable. Salaries have to be paid along with a host of other things and Marvel is certainly getting their share as well. They should be encouraging people to spend money by rewarding their purchases. As for the game not being Pay2Win that's just not the case. It's most certainly P2W but you do have to pay a lot and that's what I have issue with. I don't mind putting some money into the game but I'd not gonna fork over the huge amount that's required to get real benefit.

Your original post was complaining that the game wasn't pay to win and now you claim that it is?

The sweet spot for a game like this is to have as many people playing as possible and paying for progression boosts or storage space. Neither is pay to win. Regardless of how much money you throw at the game you cannot buy an advantage over others.

Once you get your pay to win game where you have a distinct advantage by forking over an amount of money, it requires everyone to pay or be at a disadvantage. When a game becomes greedy like that most players bail.

Unknown

Covers pack are really only good for players that are still in low tier or transitioning to mid tier, and want a boost to jump ahead. And they are pretty good at that, particularly if you target certain event packs.I wouldn't hesitate to tell a new player to invest in the powered up pack. Limited character selection means limited need for new cover slots immediately, and the covers given are really good for a low tier player (Even Cap. He's actually a good character for PVE, great at dealing with countdown tiles).

There are things to spend your money on at all phases of the game. Just, the more you progress, the more limited your options are, and more expensive. And I'm ok with that. The prices could use a bit more adjusting, but I think the balance between getting what you pay for and making it pay to win is good, and it's obviously making them money. Hell the 2 times they've adjusted prices, it's been upwards, not down, which tells me people are still buying despite the increased costs. (Though, they have implemented the daily deals, which reverts the heroic cost to pre-increase levels, but only one token a day.)

Unknown

Ok so I see what you are saying where if you spend money you can't get something someone who doesn't spend money will eventually get. The thing is it could take a year or more to earn enough covers on the characters you want but someone can go spend a bunch of money and get the same thing quicker and that is still pay2win It's just more of a way to get the end result quicker than it is to have access to something nobody else does because you paid for it.

Again I just want to see a way for people who spend small amounts to not have that money be wasted by getting useless covers.

Unknown

Qikone wrote:

The problem with that Zathrus is that money pays the bills.

I'm a senior software developer w/ over 20 years of experience. I'm quite aware of how these things work.

As for the game not being Pay2Win that's just not the case. It's most certainly P2W but you do have to pay a lot and that's what I have issue with. I don't mind putting some money into the game but I'd not gonna fork over the huge amount that's required to get real benefit.

Pay2Win implies that there is a significant difference between players who pay into the game and those who do not. That is simply not the case with MPQ.

There are incentives to pay money at different levels of the game, and they're mostly reasonable. Starting out, HP for cover slots or ISO for leveling is reasonable. Mid-tier, HP for tokens or cover slots. High end it's HP for powers or maybe 3* guaranteed tokens. At all levels you can buy HP for health packs. At the high end the incentives cost more, but I'm fine with that. And the thing is, none of those give you a huge advantage, nor are any required. Do they make things easier? Certainly. And that's how it should be -- if you want to pay then it's instead of playing constantly, not in addition to.

Unknown

Well, qikone, do you have any suggestions? The only suggestion in your original post was 'maybe make a cover token give you a selection to choose from' (which doesn't seem really practical or helpful without tripling the chance of a player getting a 3* cover, at least to me). Maybe change it so that a character's cover could be spent on any ability, instead of being preset by color?

Giving a mid-to-high tier player more bang for your buck is just really tough if you don't want to slide into pay2win territory. Zathus's post covers everything else I wanted to say, and more concisely to boot lol.

Clintman

So here is the thing, I already have a bad **** main team of maxed out Rags, Magneto, Spider Man, IM 40, and I have every other character except IW, 4* Wolvie and a black cover for OBW. I can compete in any event and do well, I would pay a reasonable amount of speed up my leveling of my Punisher and Hulk covers. Would that make me more over powered than I already am compared to people that have spent nothing on the game? No, not at all, I am already far out of their league, me having an entire stable of maxed out level 3s does not make me any more overpowered since you really only need 1-2 maxed out 3* characters to be really competitive. Now I want to play around with different characters, I have money I would spend it if there was value, I would spend a reasonable amount of money to buy the missing covers I still want for Hulk.

The problem is that once you have all your covers, or most of the covers and you start deciding you want to max out a character, you come to the reality that it would cost over $100 to max out a toon. It leaves those of use who have supported the game substantially and would be happy to continue to support the game financially unable too because you would be a fool to spend that much money on a character when you consider a game like COD: Ghosts or any other console game runs $60.

Unknown

Well, qikone, do you have any suggestions?

I made this post to have a discussion. I would argue that we are talking too much on if the game is or is not pay2win and enough about what kind of ways we can improve on the model. I have already stated I love playing the game and have offered at least 1 suggestion. I just want to have a healthy discussion about ways to improve the monetization in MPQ. This is a discussion board. Lets discuss!

Unknown

Clint, what's the solution? Do you have a suggestion that would make things better for you, but that wouldn't let someone who wasn't so advanced gain a huge benefit easily? If you could pay $5 to max a character's level, say, so can anyone else, and while it may not be game breaking for you, it would be for someone who hasn't gotten to your level of progression.

Qikone, I understand. Just, I'm personally able to come up with something would wouldn't be abusive. Anything useful to a high level player is going to be 2x/3x/more to someone who is of low level. The only thing that came to mind to me was the variation on your suggestion, making it so covers weren't color specific.

Pentagoon

As a high level player, I support the spirit of "pick one of three" that was proposed. I earned a dozen or so Hulk Tourney tokens last week and got absolutely nothing I could use (Caps galore). However, during the same timefreame I got a BWGrey Green, Storm Classic Blue, and Spidey Blue - all that I desperately needed - from Standard tokens. Go figure... The highs are high and the lows are low and the only thing for sure is that the game is darn fun.

--\(*_*)/

Unknown

They're for newer players to more quickly catch up and be competitive. Not for veterans looking to dominate against new and f2p players. Veterans however can stil drop money when new characters come out so they can be the first to use em.

I wouldn't mind if boosts were tied to real money. Or if they somehow made skipping cost ISO. Respecs when they eventually add it could be good for monetization.

eidehua

It's not pay to win, it's pay for convenience. Paying money just allows you to get things faster in MPQ.
There are few real free 2 play games in your sense, games like dota 2/path of exile/tf2 that don't have any sort of boosts/faster level for money IIRC.

--Sure, other games may have better incentives for paying. Perhaps they could add in iso boosts for $

Unknown

Remove the ability to pay for specific character upgrades and instead offer better purchasing choices for covers. More options when you buy a cover like say even another choice so you can choose Wolverine or Cap! Then you could get twice as pissed when you waste your money. Seriously though there are better ways. Marvel Heroes lets you buy a character for a one time cost and you can earn any character specifically by playing the game enough and hey you don't have to buy that character again when you level to 15 just to level him to 30. What a novel concept.

Unknown

Qikone wrote:

Remove the ability to pay for specific character upgrades and instead offer better purchasing choices for covers. More options when you buy a cover like say even another choice so you can choose Wolverine or Cap! Then you could get twice as pissed when you waste your money. Seriously though there are better ways. Marvel Heroes lets you buy a character for a one time cost and you can earn any character specifically by playing the game enough and hey you don't have to buy that character again when you level to 15 just to level him to 30. What a novel concept.

You've never played a CCG before?

Unknown

I'll be watching the forum on and off today but if anyone wants to have a discussion with me in real time my stream is up and I am clearing the 2 new Hulk events from today and doing the Widowmaker event later on.

http://twitch.tv/qik1

Bcorm

The difficulty with a "Freemium" game is maintaining the balance between free players and paying players. If the gap is too small and free players can achieve a high rank consistantly with only minimal grinding, the game won't make enough to be profitable. On the other hand if there is no way a free player can achieve anything worthwhile they will quit and you're left with a very large percentage of paying players. This might sound good at first but eventually the customer base will shrink horribly. Since somebody still has to finish last there will be more paying players in those spots and they won't want to waste money on a bottom tier reward, would you want to spend $50.00 for 250 iso? The trick is to find the right balance between the two, not making it strictly "pay to win" but also making using real money enticing enough to encourage it.