MPQ Community Q&A #4 – January - Video Answer Time

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hi everyone,

Coming in just under the wire - it's time for the January Marvel Puzzle Quest Community Q&A!

We're experimenting with something other than a traditional text Q&A this time around. A quartet of developers from Demiurge; Miles, Casey, Will and Kabir chat in our first video Q&A session, providing some answers and insights to inquiries supplied by forum-goers.



Grab yourself a beverage, kick your feet up and press play. Feel free to provide your feedback on how you like the new Q&A format in the forum comments section and thanks for watching!

MPQ Community Q&A #4 – January - Video Answer Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6FSezF ... e=youtu.be

Nellobee

Neat! Can't wait to watch this after work. Even only because now we will know their voices and mannerisms.

Unknown

Overall, I think MPQ was pretty successful at actually answering the questions, which was really the most lacking thing from previous Q & A's. Anything additional after that is just really icing on the cake.

The only thing I question is the vaulting system. I'm not buying the explanation even with the apple juice analogy.

P.S. Next time, please get a better mic or something.

Marc_Spector

a few minutes into it now, and loving the format. Thanks so much for doing this!

(VERY glad to hear that Invisible Woman is a top-4 character for rebalance -- Thank you!!!)

SnowcaTT

Trying to give some text for those who don't want to watch (although it's nice to have a face with the names!). Will post now and update as I go along.

#1 (1:00) Rebalance: characters worked on in two-week blocks, didn't work on re-balance in last two weeks (have worked on several characters in last two weeks). List that they want to re-balance is similar to players: Rag's 3rd ability at top of list, IW/Doc Oc/She-Hulk. They know there can't be a "best", they want there to not be a "worst".

#2 (4:00) Roster slots: "is an issue". Kicking around ideas - progression as a possibility. "we know we need to address it", ideas need more work "top issue in game right now", CEO says also.

#3 (6:00) Vaulting or updating tokens? 8:00 - why they don't want to have two different token pools. "intend to keep character rotation in packs indefinitely, no plans to change that". 9:00 "If there is a different way to earn tokens, it may not have to obey same rules" [obscure reference to possible future change?]

#4) (10:00, they say this is from Nonce) : mis-match of strongest colors vs abilities they use. Color Strengths/Ability sequence come from two different spots in the config - changing is very difficult. They could change color strengths to match abilities - looked into it and they don't think it is the right answer. They are still looking into how to fix this (they like Nonce's chart).

#5) (12:20) More non-competitive (perhaps co-op) events? They refer to the old score targets and mention how global score is really hard to calculate (depending on how much people play, which varies): they are looking at other events and "might see something in the next couple of months"

#6) (14:30) scrolling through leader board - once again they say it's really intensive on battery life and servers.

---"We were so stressed out about this!" (regarding Q&A session, coming up on last question).

#7) (16:45) How do you determine release (Luke Cage out same time as netflix). They are getting info from Marvel way ahead of time and have non-disclosures about it, it is sometimes spoiling the upcoming comic books for them. They are worried about those posting from binary: "you are hurting our ability to launch stuff alongside the comic books". Expect more to tie into comics and "maybe not comics".

GothicKratos

You don't care about a character until they have enough apple juice to throw at your enemies.

atomzed

I like the video format as it puts a face on to the D3 employee. It is also more likely that they leak some info unintentionally, like Starlord becoming Spiderman (:P like ok I get it that it was a joke, but in the long run they are more likely to say more stuff).

Unknown

I'm looking forward to them adding more liquids to MPQ.

DaveR4470

Like the format! One request: please put the mic closer to yourselves. The sound levels were pretty low....

GothicKratos

This was really awesome. Enjoyed the format thoroughly - it was nice to see human interaction and reactions rather than text responses. It makes it feel a lot more like we're talking to you and you're talking to us. Definitely would love to see this again.

yogi_

Will's discussional type responses work much better verbally than over text.

The format is good but I think the broad outcomes (aka. questions actually answered) is largely similar to the usual - character rotation staying (this is a lot more confirmed than previously), rebalances eventually, roster slots being worked on with no answer soon, etc. etc.

GothicKratos

Also, for the record, here's all the questions addressed;

1 - What characters are currently being looked at for rebalance?

2 - What steps have you been considering taking to address the Roster Slot/Hero Point shortage we have currently due to the increased release of new characters?

3 - Do you intend to continue vaulting characters indefinitely, or will you be updating the token system in the future to make all characters available at all times?

4 - For most characters, their ability list is in the same order as their tile-match damage. The tile match is used for "Strongest color", which is a mechanic for many characters. However, inexplicably, for some characters the abilities aren't given in the same orders as their damages, which makes the game more complicated and confusing. Is their a compelling reason for having these characters in a weird state?

5 - Did you consider developing more non-competitive pve events (like the Gauntlet) that could even be cooperative events (for example, when all players grind together to fill a progression bar but other fun cooperative mechanisms are possible)

6 - I'd like to be able to SCROLL up through the leaderboard, so i can see whether spending boosts/healthpacks to get into the reward slot is worth doing.

7 - How closely do you work with Marvel? Do they decide which characters you release, or influence the decision? I noticed you announced Luke Cage as the next hero on the same day they announced the actor who will play him.

Nellobee

I was hoping to see something about easing transitions/reward structure issues, but I am glad to hear they didn't duck some of the harder questions.

esoxnepa

GothicKratos wrote:

Also, for the record, here's all the questions addressed;

1 - What characters are currently being looked at for rebalance?

2 - What steps have you been considering taking to address the Roster Slot/Hero Point shortage we have currently due to the increased release of new characters?

3 - Do you intend to continue vaulting characters indefinitely, or will you be updating the token system in the future to make all characters available at all times?

4 - For most characters, their ability list is in the same order as their tile-match damage. The tile match is used for "Strongest color", which is a mechanic for many characters. However, inexplicably, for some characters the abilities aren't given in the same orders as their damages, which makes the game more complicated and confusing. Is their a compelling reason for having these characters in a weird state?

5 - Did you consider developing more non-competitive pve events (like the Gauntlet) that could even be cooperative events (for example, when all players grind together to fill a progression bar but other fun cooperative mechanisms are possible)

6 - I'd like to be able to SCROLL up through the leaderboard, so i can see whether spending boosts/healthpacks to get into the reward slot is worth doing.

7 - How closely do you work with Marvel? Do they decide which characters you release, or influence the decision? I noticed you announced Luke Cage as the next hero on the same day they announced the actor who will play him.

I am hoping that two of the hints they had are how 2-3-4* transition will be helped. The "New Liquid" and the "New Method to obtain 3*s."

Lots of good answers, and seeing everyone lets you see just how careful they need to be about releasing information before it is ready.

rixmith

I appreciate the Demiurge guys taking the time out of their busy days to do this. It is certainly nice to put some faces to the names we see, and to be able to see that the people working on the game care deeply about the game, comics, and the Marvel character base. I'm sure some people will be disappointed that they didn't hear some of the answers that they wanted (e.g. roster slot caps, elimination of vaulting), but it sounds like the team does consider the views that we express, tries to judge the effort vs. reward of the possible things they could work on, and considers the whole of the player base (not just those of us here who are admittedly a very vocal but tiny percentage).

I at least feel like our questions were heard and put through some due diligence discussion, even if we didn't get the answers we might have been hoping for.

yogi_

GothicKratos wrote:

Also, for the record, here's all the questions addressed;

1 - What characters are currently being looked at for rebalance? The main ones we talk on the forums - Beast, Doc Oct, She Hulk, IW, etc.

2 - What steps have you been considering taking to address the Roster Slot/Hero Point shortage we have currently due to the increased release of new characters? We know it's an issue, we're working on it. No outcome soon.

3 - Do you intend to continue vaulting characters indefinitely, or will you be updating the token system in the future to make all characters available at all times? Yes. Maybe in the future, we're half working on it.

4 - For most characters, their ability list is in the same order as their tile-match damage. The tile match is used for "Strongest color", which is a mechanic for many characters. However, inexplicably, for some characters the abilities aren't given in the same orders as their damages, which makes the game more complicated and confusing. Is their a compelling reason for having these characters in a weird state? Nonce, you rock, but it's pretty low on our list of priorities.

5 - Did you consider developing more non-competitive pve events (like the Gauntlet) that could even be cooperative events (for example, when all players grind together to fill a progression bar but other fun cooperative mechanisms are possible) Yes, we'll see something eventually at some point.

6 - I'd like to be able to SCROLL up through the leaderboard, so i can see whether spending boosts/healthpacks to get into the reward slot is worth doing. Not going to happen - too server intensive. Maybe or maybe not a workaround or something at some point.

7 - How closely do you work with Marvel? Do they decide which characters you release, or influence the decision? I noticed you announced Luke Cage as the next hero on the same day they announced the actor who will play him. Pretty closely, they have to approve our work, please stop leaking on the forums.

Cheat guide responses in bold.

turul

I think they are overthinking the difficulty of Nonce's strongest color problem, and also, the scrollable rankings.

And also, just leaked that there is leaks found on forums/how to leak

lukewin

They did too good a job of answering. It takes the wind out of the sails of people that are harping on the same issues over and over. Look forward to February, but since most of the big issues have been addressed, maybe an update on progress of the big issues as tentpoles, while answering other questions as filler. I think that would work well, because the issues will still be issues, but now we know where they stand on them. Maybe just a quick rundown/update on the big issues, just to keep us in the know. I will say this is a pretty big step in communicating with us, so thanks for the answers guys. I hope this isn't the last Video Q&A. I saw the 20 min, and groaned, but as I watched, I was wanting more and wondered where the 20 min went.

Trisul

The video was pretty cool, thanks for doing that.

So, the team seems pretty agile, but one potential downside of agile teams is the lack of long-term vision, and I totally felt that when the guys were explaining their dev cycle.

I really hope they have a little more direction than a vague "what should we work on in the next 2 weeks?".

Unknown

This was a lot of fun to watch. Nice to see the faces of the people that build the game. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

GothicKratos

Just to sidetrack a little;

turul wrote:

I think they are overthinking the difficulty of [...] the scrollable rankings.

I'm not really sure I agree here. For the information to be useful, it has to be up-to-date, which means your phone and the server have to be constantly communicating back and forth, making it a magnitude of a couple thousand when you add in every person playing. If just the server stress isn't a good enough reasoning, the data usage should be plausible enough. People already complain enough to node amounts aren't accurate enough, I don't think we need to add this to the list too.

The half-way point here would be to allow you to "snap" to certain segments of the leaderboard. So to speak, giving us the ability to "snap" up a pane or down a pane from our current ranking, and also being able to "snap" to the pane under the top ranking pane - and only have the server communicate that information when we "snap" to that specific pane. I feel like this is a good middle ground, but this would still have to be programmed, and the server stress issue is still potentially an issue. (Shout out to, I think, mohio, whom posted this idea before. I totally stole it, sorry.)