February Community Q&A - Please vote!

Demiurge_Kabir

UPDATE 2/24: Locking this bad boy up, and we're aiming to get the response posted by the end of this week, 2/27!

UPDATE 2/17: Thanks for all the questions! I'm going to leave this thread open for folks to continue voting on questions. We'll film this next week and are shooting to get our responses live by 2/27.

Hey everyone, we had such a warm response to the last Q&A that we've decided to record another one! We're also keeping questions open for a bit longer, and our goal is to post our video response to you in the last week of February.

1. Please post each question separately, so forumgoers can upvote the questions they want answered most.
2. You can also e-mail us at QandA@demiurgestudios.com
2. We'll be taking questions until next Monday, 2/16 so please get them in before then.
3. If you have questions about our art process, we'd love to answer them.

Fire away!

Chirus

With more 4 stars coming into the mix, are there any plans to increase the amount of iso that can be gained from rewards?

Colognoisseur

Would you consider forming a players advisory board? So maybe some simple things could be caught before they are rolled out while still flawed.

Unknown

Is David HiFi Moore still playing the game? How is he doing in the game?

mischiefmaker

You once mentioned Blizzard's "Make everything overpowered" as a useful design philosophy. What are some of the other design principles you use when making new characters?

Chirus

Can we expect to see the list of 4 stars to continue to grow regularly? if so, will 4 star vaulting be in the plans for the near future?

orbitalint

What are the plans for this "4* transition" that are in the works? The release of Star Lord was the same ole model of severely limited distribution in a single PVE event with a PVP event to follow. It seems like the transition is not even something most of us will ever achieve when you get 1 chance at all of them in a single event and then a growing rotation where only the top spot of events get any additional covers. Nothing in that seems like a possibility for anyone that isn't already there.

Are you considering more regular 4* events where we can compete for them maybe once a month? Expanding distribution of rewards upon initial release? We haven't heard any status updates and the release of a new 4* before this issue got resolved is hard to swallow for many of us.

Unknown

"The List" PVE...we get teased with it every run of the Hulk PVE. What are the chances of this happening?

mischiefmaker

Last Q&A you mentioned roster slot pricing as the top issue in the game. What other issues are you actively looking to address in the short term?

Unknown

There have been rumblings about a daily noncompetitive PVE or a third "liquid" in the game to add ease with the transition to 3*. Can you provide any updates on this?

mischiefmaker

What are the most surprising or interesting examples of emergent gameplay (I'm sure you know what this is, but for any readers who might not, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay) that you've seen in MPQ? Is this something you want to actively encourage? Are there examples you think are disruptive or harmful to the game?

Unknown

TL; DR Solution to 36 Hour subs due to PVE's start at a time 12 hours different from the end time.

Most players select their time slice in PVE based on that event's end time. However, the events usually begin at a time that is 12 hours off of the end time i.e. 1pm end time starts at 1am. Will something be done so that entry time does have such a significant influence on PVE placement given that players choose based on convenient end times?

For example, the first sub has massive rubberband so that regardless of when you start the PVE. That way, if you start during the 1st sub, you'll have the opportunity to be in just as good contention with some one that was able to start right when the 1st sub commenced even if you were not able to join the sub until 12 hours later. Obviously, come the second sub, rubberband would revert back to the way it is now.

Edits for grammar. Added TL; DR.

Puertorico

With all the new 4* appearing is it safe to say 5* will appear soon?

Unknown

With all the new updates going on, when are current issues going to be fixed?

E.g. Hulk's Red power. It clearly doesn't add extra damage with remaining greens

Infrared

We generally understand that tiles are generated "randomly" during a game. However, that has not stopped many of us from anecdotally observing that there are periods when the AI seems to constantly get favourable cascades, or that friendly countdown tiles (especially X-Force recovery) often seem to get cleared away in a ridiculously unlikely fashion. This could be explained by confirmation bias. Still, it would be nice if you could go on the record to settle any doubts and explain the game's tile generation process, and whether there are situations where it is not totally random.

Scoregasms

Are there (or has there) been discussions on revamping the Placement Award system (for PVE only)? Has the thought of maybe moving the current Placement Rewards as Progression Rewards instead ever been discussed (and just give out Heroic 10-Packs to the Top 10 instead like what was done this current Gauntlet)?

Player community has grown and with factors like personal scaling (newbies vs vets), luck in bracket placement, etc, it seems to be a bit too erratic of a reward system. Perhaps have 4* Covers at 3x/4x/5x current Top Progression Reward levels instead (leaving Alliance Rewards the same). This would drive more folks playing the PVE's and incentivize more players to go for more points for covers. I'm going to assume most of players will probably not grind out what is needed for these point totals anyway, but it would alleviate the stress of these "bloodbath" type PVE's for new characters. The work to get there is still required, but it removes the x-factors out of a players control (i.e. folks are still going to grind optimally since that is required to even score 5x the top Progression Reward).

EDIT: Changed 4x/5x/6x to 3x/4x/5x to be a bit more reasonable

EDIT 2: Link to previous Suggestion thread on this topic for more background: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20979&p=294070#p294070

Unknown

Would you guys be willing to share some more of the data that you collect? I'm talking some aggregate things like what you did for the PVE refresh times and the score distribution...

I for one would love to see the actually draw rates on heroic 10-packs. Based on the bias sample collected on the forums, the zero draws happen way more than they should...

Thanks!

Trisul

What are your favorite MPQ teams to play as?

Unknown

What's the timeframe for a visible shield cooldown timer? Once you've shielded, there's no way to see the remaining time left on the cooldown of a different length shield.

Unknown

What long term goals does the Dev team have for MPQ?
In a perfect world where you can implement all of your goals what does the game look like a year from now?

Unknown

Is there any plan to address scaling in PVE?

As it currently stands, there is an incentive to not level your characters to avoid this problem, and players who level their 3 and 4* chars to 166/270 suffer from disproportionate difficulty relative to low level rosters. You'd imagine the game would want to unequivocally encourage players to level up characters.

Thank you for any comment!

Edit: Regarding the word scaling, which can have several interpretations, I'm more specifically referring to initial enemy levels, not to community scaling or individual scaling of difficulty.