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

wymtime

Really liked the video format. Please keep answering in this way. I liked that they gave a list of characters they want to rebalance and the fact that they talked about working in two week blocks is very informative. I can picture them in a room with a list of items on a white board discussing what they want to do over the next two weeks. I can only imagine how tough it would be to limit the items they want to do in those 2 weeks.

Pylgrim

Agreed that the video format is a lot better. Even when the have to give somewhat disappointing answers (like the roster slot costs fix still being a long way) it sounds more genuine and more trust-inducing (and less PR corporate) than when questions were answered similarly in the past.

About leaderboard scrolling: definitely understand the issues, but can we please then get the people 10 positions above and 10 positions below us instead of only 5? That alone is a huge improvement and shouldn't increase the server load as it will still be only one data transmission.

Howzat

lukewin wrote:

cjkmpq wrote:

Personally I always liked the suggestion of adding an additional leader board that displays the people currently sitting at progression reward breakpoints. Not as informative for sure, but it at least provides the important information.

This, so much this. T10 is nice to know, but as someone that hit T25 a few times, but is now in the T50-T100 range, it would be so much more helpful to see a range like 21-30 (to know what is needed for T25), 45-54 (to know what is needed for T50), and 94-104 (to know what is needed for T100). Would give me an idea if it is even possible for me to get in those ranks by breaking shield, or if i should continue to play for a chance at a cover, or just call it a day, and try another mode, PVE/Simulator/PVP. They could be added tabs. It would probably be a lot more difficult to have, but more UI friendly, if we just had 1 tab up. So if I am below 100, I see what is needed for T100. If I am 51-100, I see what is needed for T50, etc, etc. Since I won't be breaking into the Top 10 anytime soon, I could care less who is in the Top Ranked tab. I'd rather see the next progression level ranks instead of the Top Ranked tab.

I do realize that coming up with ideas is 100% easier than implementing them, but I think this would be worth trying to do.

It does't need to be that complicated. The current t10 board has zero value. The only people that need to know the t10 are those that can already see it in their +/-5 board. The current t10 just needs to be replaced with the current score at the reward change positions, #1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 200. This applies for pvp and pve.

edit: actually 25 for pvp would need to be 20 for pve.

Unknown

Awesome format and nice video, hope this is not the last video for Q&A session like you mentioned
I'm sure we'll be looking forward to see more of this, since everyone is giving such positive feedbacks.
Please keep up the good work!

Unknown

turul

daibar wrote:

turul wrote:

I think they are overthinking the difficulty of Nonce's strongest color problem

They probably made a database decision back in the day with the cover system where the strongest color didn't matter, and the covers of a character are probably stored as 3 separate columns without any tie to their color. To update it, they would have to do an update query on the entire cover database requiring downtime as well as a major forced update to ensure that people aren't facing enemies with completely different coverings. I'm sure they're adverse to any downtime.

Ordering the colors visually based on already given match damages should not be that hard.

DrNitroman

This video format was very nice, mostly because it was a great opportunity to meet with Demiurge team (or almost )
I have however a small concern: I'm not a native English speaker, and while I understood the most part of the answers I missed a few details. English subtitles would be very helpful but the automatic subtitles don't work very well. (To be fair they are so terrible, they become funny ).
Is there a way for someone from Demiurge to add the real subtitles? Maybe there is already an option that I missed?

SnowcaTT wrote:

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.

Anyway it was nice to hear you guys, and big thanks to SnowcaTT for providing a written summary of the answers!

Unknown

Awesome you guys did a video like this, but lame that you only took on softball questions.

At least there sounds to be game changes coming that will address the horrendous transition. It's not about race v. marathon, it's about broken game.

Unknown

The answer is not good at all, but the format is much much much better than tons for other developers keep on

Unknown

The video was pleasant to watch. I enjoyed it, but not as a Q&A thing.

However, the answers are still very vague.

7 questions answered is not much.

Looks like they have a schedule (for releasing characters) and the rest is not a priority. So they work on what we complain about "when they have time".

The new characters must be money-makers. But they simply don't understand how marketing is working.

Unknown

Nice format but talk louder sometime we ear nothing

And questions are not interesting then answers are not interesting too.

Nothing about a "crafting system"... sad.

I'll not back in the game for a while, let's see in 6 months.

Hulk11

Hopefully the co-op gets better/ added.

Unknown

I really liked the video and hope you stick to doing it this way going forward. Hearing the thought process that goes into deciding if a change should be made is very interesting and shows that the devs are not just blowing off user suggestions.

Unknown

This video was great. I really enjoyed seeing the developers in person and hearing their comments. I can't say that I've ever played a game with as much interaction with the developers as MPQ, including the interaction on this forum -- this is a tremendous strength for the game.

Also, I should add that I think seeing you guys in person (kind of like an introduction of sorts) is very important. I think it may make for a bit less negative commentary on the forum -- it's more difficult to say hurtful or negative things in a non-constructive way when you've been introduced to someone and they are non just some anonymous developer. Seeing your faces puts a person behind the names.

I hope the monthly Q&A videos continue.

P.S. I like how many of you guys are rocking with beards!

Pylgrim

turul wrote:

daibar wrote:

turul wrote:

I think they are overthinking the difficulty of Nonce's strongest color problem

They probably made a database decision back in the day with the cover system where the strongest color didn't matter, and the covers of a character are probably stored as 3 separate columns without any tie to their color. To update it, they would have to do an update query on the entire cover database requiring downtime as well as a major forced update to ensure that people aren't facing enemies with completely different coverings. I'm sure they're adverse to any downtime.

Ordering the colors visually based on already given match damages should not be that hard.

I think it's not so much that it's hard as it is disruptive and of little effect for the amount of work put into it. Sure, a few super enfranchised players in the forum do notice little things like that and are bothered by it, but the big majority of the players are casual joes that may not even know there's a forum. And one day they are playing, get enough AP for certain ability, quickly tap on the character's symbol and on the position where muscle memory knows the power they want to cast is.... but wait... now another ability is there. Is the same ability that was before in some other slot? Why did it change places? Was there a minute change to it? No? Then why would they do that? Seems like a lot of needless confusion and work on Demiurge's part just to satisfy a few sticklers for detail.

manocheese

Excellent, well done.

Unknown

I'm surprised they didn't address how oppressive Thorverine is.

I'm actually very surprised.

In the video, they cringed and sighed when discussing overpowered characters like Ragnorak or Sentry, while failing to mention two characters that are, really, even more oppressive than Sentry.

At least when Sentry was around, you could still score 1000 or occasionally 1300 points with the right combination of characters and a little luck. Yes, you had to watch out for sentry bombers, as they were faster than you, but there wasn't a wall in PVP between the typical 3 star teams and the Sentry 3 star teams.

Now, you get past 600 or 700 and you see nothing but Xforce and Thor, meaning unless you have 1 of them or unless you boost the hell out of your team, you're done climbing around 700.

The lone exception is Patch+ Hulk, who can reliably take down 4 star teams but is, simultaneously, a huge health pack drain plus a very attractive defensive team to attack since they are not Xforce + Thor.

Sentry was a huge problem, don't get me wrong. But he was beatable on defense and he was also fairly easy to pull tokens of him, you could get him via placement in PVP tournaments, PVE tournaments and was a 3 star, which are more available than 4 stars in general. So if you ever felt overwhelmed by Sentry, you could always go out and buy your own or build your own organically through tokens an placement rewards.

A lot of people just bought Sentry, which is fine. But evn then, he only costs 100 dollars at most to max. So while it was still a pay to win game, it was pay a relatively small amount to win game. (I guess 100 dollars isn't small, depending on what you define as expensive for a mobile game.)

A Thor or Wolverine from scratch costs north of 500 dollars, even as much as 1000 dollars. And until this last event, getting 1300 was almost impossible for anyone who didn't have Thor, Wolverine or both.

So in a world where a 3 star was oppressive, but also allowed you to win with a relatively minor cash/token and placement investment, the fact that they do not consider the characters that are 10 times more expensive and just as, if not more, oppressive to be equally prejudicial to the game and its players is kind of laughable.

/rant.

Unknown

Also, a potential work around for the leaderboard issue:

You already say you automatically send the top 10, as it is relevant to just about everyone.

How about you automatically send the lowest point of each reward tier?

For example, let's say I am ranked # 67 in the PVE (I'm skipping this PVE because of the 3 h timers, I'm just using that ranking as an example.)
I can't see #50's score to see how far I have to go to get the Starlord cover, I just know what #62 has.

So, rather than letting me scroll through the entire leader board, which would cause a lot of communication with the server, why not just pre-load #1, #5, #10, #50, #150 etc. That way I can look at how much I need to squeak into the next tier of rewards. It wouldn't be any more intensive than loading the top 10 (Especially considering the top 3 reward placement tiers are in the top 10 anyway) and would give each player some extremely valuable information during their climb.

Now, granted, this disjointed gathering of information may be a problem in itself. How much work will the server need to do to load #50 ,but skip #51-#149 and show you #150 as well? I have no idea. But I think it would be worth discussing.

Tl;DR

In a PVE that has the reward tiers set as top 1, top 5, top 10, top 50 and top 150, just show each player the top 10, then add a third tab that shows #50, #150 and #300 or whatever the other reward tiers are.

This will allow people to know how much they can lose and not fall out of their reward tier as well as tell them how many points they'll need to reach the next reward tier without overloading the server with sending excess and unnecessary information.

SnakesArrows

First, I like the video format.

Next, on the vaulting issue, they can easily do two types of tokens that collectively contain all characters. Their concern was that people would focus on one of the two token types. However they can easily change this by mixing the characters in each token type every season. They could use the character rankings to help mix the pool in fair manner. This would allow everyone to still access all characters and would eliminate the concern mentioned in the video of someone focusing on one of the groups over another. If they need to rotate out a character or two that they are reworking that is fine and understandable.

Third, on the leaderboard issue i agree with prior posts that instead of pulling full top ten, pull ranks 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100. Allow to scroll up five addition spots ahead of you (can make that a user option for people concerned about power/data?). The additional five would be very helpful, should not cause device or server overload. If cut the "top ten" down to five natural cut off ranks it should cause no additional data or power exchange.

Finally, just make a maximum cost for roster spots that is reasonable. They claim to want diversity of rosters and play, but are contrary to that in the higher end roster slot costs (and vaulting characters for that matter). 500 hp seems like a reasonable max to me. However if they feel for their bottom line that 700 hp is the lowest they can go okay. Perhaps offer three pack discounts (700 max if bought individually, but buy three for 1500 hp?). They will likely make more money if i am in any way common. I have 51 slots. I would buy more for a reasonable price, but the cost currently is prohibitive and not worth it. I started deleting characters (2* cap for example) instead of buying more slots. I would like to have a complete roster but not at the cost they ask. Lower the price and I will buy more slots. I bet others would as well. Make more by charging less!

Unknown

Please add a 30 second delay between sentences in your next video so the idiots among us don't feel left out.

Thanks.