lack of daily active players

morph3us

It's good that IceIX is reading this thread, because I think some really good points have been made.

If we put the metrics aside, as Ice has suggested we do, I still think that Phantron's point is a valid one. This game is unusual in that, Prologue aside, until recently (pre-DDQ), all the game modes were competitive, and in order to garner any measure of success, a player had to be reasonably committed to this game. Having said that, this game occupies an unusual space, in that it's a mobile app, and a number of comparisons to Angry Birds or Candy Crush have been made. As this game currently exists, I don't think that comparison is a valid one, since it's not a pick up and play casually game, and that's pretty much due to the competitive nature of the game. Most mobile games are designed for casual play, which this really isn't.

Taking Phantron's point about success within a competitive PvE and PvP environment essentially requiring that a minority win, at the expense of less developed rosters, in order for that model to be sustainable, it requires that MPQ have a sustainable growth model. In other words, the "scraps" that the 2* and transitioning rosters get in PvP need to be a bonus reward for them, not their main method of advancement. I would therefore agree that there needs to be more non-competitive content, in which starting and casual players can feel that they're achieving some progression. I don't believe that occasionally scraping a T100 PvP finish whilst being trampled by those of us with developed 3* (or 4*) rosters is conducive to long term play for newer players. DDQ is a good start (and don't get me wrong, I like it lot!), but hopefully the devs have more similar content in the works.

konannfriends

PvP used to be the main way to gain 3 stars. I used to make top 25 easy. But now that the game is an extreme slaughter house I can only every make top 50 and top 25 if I constantly play every couple hours.

The reason PvP is a slaughter house is because of people trying to get 4 stars.
Do YOU know how many times I looked at people rosters who had 950+ points in a PvP just to see that they don't even need that 3 star.
That is So heartbreaking when I really want a 3 star but I can't cuz 25 Master vets are fighting for 1 4*

It used to never be that way back when I started. And I still don't understand why.

No one used to get past 650 at most... Now I never join a bracket without top 10 at 1000 points , at what point did people start trying so hard for 4*

The only way to fix this now is to change the way the targeting system works. As a 166 user I have not problem blowing through 3 star teams. I still get wrecked 1 out of 6 times and that's cool. But when I hit a 270 that's a clear indication that moving higher is not possible. Why is there an impenetrable wall? Losing points Is cool and all But all the while I'm trying to beat X force teams meaning I'm only gaining around 90 points every 3 hours.( health packs take around that to replenish) and I'll end up losing 60 of that cuz shields are expensive and I can't afford them more than one PvP a season. So I'll be stuck at 600 gaining and losing only to get 70 points for the day

I think that 270 user should only fight teams who have a 210 or higher on them
166 users should only fight teams with 110 or higher.l but 200 or less
94 teams should only fight teams 70 or higher but less than 130

Now I know what I created has flaws but this should get rid of impenetrable walls and allow people to get higher on the rewards list. 1000 may still be hard to reach but not impossible.

Unknown

konannfriends wrote:

The reason PvP is a slaughter house is because of people trying to get 4 stars.
Do YOU know how many times I looked at people rosters who had 950+ points in a PvP just to see that they don't even need that 3 star.
That is So heartbreaking when I really want a 3 star but I can't cuz 25 Master vets are fighting for 1 4*

Alliances and season scores also add to the slaughterhouse factor. Before those things existed vets would routinely take events off if the rewards didn't interest them. Now there's no such thing as taking events off. Guy who won my Cage Match bracket had six fully covered and leveled 4* Thors and four maxed out X-Forces. Seems a little excessive to me, but regardless I don't think he smashed up to 1200 points for the extra cover at 1k or the one for winning.

I am in full agreement that it's annoying though. I've been the guy losing covers to people who don't need them, and I've been the guy taking covers I didn't need to support my alliance. Either way it feels pretty **** and I would prefer if it wasn't part of the game, but in the end it's probably way better for their business to have the constant pressure to perform so I don't think it's going anywhere.

konannfriends

Thugpatrol wrote:

konannfriends wrote:

The reason PvP is a slaughter house is because of people trying to get 4 stars.
Do YOU know how many times I looked at people rosters who had 950+ points in a PvP just to see that they don't even need that 3 star.
That is So heartbreaking when I really want a 3 star but I can't cuz 25 Master vets are fighting for 1 4*

Alliances and season scores also add to the slaughterhouse factor. Before those things existed vets would routinely take events off if the rewards didn't interest them. Now there's no such thing as taking events off. Guy who won my Cage Match bracket had six fully covered and leveled 4* Thors and four maxed out X-Forces. Seems a little excessive to me, but regardless I don't think he smashed up to 1200 points for the extra cover at 1k or the one for winning.

I am in full agreement that it's annoying though. I've been the guy losing covers to people who don't need them, and I've been the guy taking covers I didn't need to support my alliance. Either way it feels pretty **** and I would prefer if it wasn't part of the game, but in the end it's probably way better for their business to have the constant pressure to perform so I don't think it's going anywhere.

This sounds a bit silly but I feel there should be can option for people to play PvP for the point but they don't end up on a bracket. That allows them to drive there score without mindlessly stripping others from a chance to win covers

They could do it where they can choose rather to place in the bracket or not( all while allowing them to get the point rewards)

I think that's the best choice

Unknown

In gaming industry in general it's been proven quite conclusively that there isn't something so hardcore that everyone hates it but somehow is successful despite everyone hating it, unless you've a monopoly on the genre but I'm pretty sure MPQ doesn't have a monopoly on 'hardcore match 3'. There is a place for cutthroat competition and I don't think the competitive events needs to be made less competitive, but there has to be something else for people who can't compete to do. DDQ is a great start but they can't just say 'that should be enough while you continue to get ran over by X Forces', because it's not. The competitive model of this game is a pyramid scheme. I can easily cruise to a T100 without even trying while running over all kinds of hapless transitioner guys, so from my perspective this game is pretty cool. But there's no way I pay enough for the game (in fact, I don't pay any money for this game) to make up for all the guys I ran over, and certainly if we're trying to measure some kind of happiness score I'm pretty sure my positive happiness for the easy wins easily loses to the sum of all the negative happiness I inflicted on other players. As mention by Morpheus, the competitive stuff should be viewed as a bonus, but currently they're more like the sole means of progression prior to DDQ being in the game, and due to DDQ's structure of requiring the cover to win that cover, there's still a pretty significant amount of participation you've to do in other competitive events before DDQ can be considerably remotely self sustaining, and of course even if you had all the characters in the game it'd take a very long time to build up a viable roster given DDQ presumably rotates through every 3* in the game.

MarvelDestiny

The multiple time frames available for events remain a good idea regardless of current attendance (I'm assuming this is what is referred to by slicing/shards). They address the problems of multiple time zones and sleep schedules. I say keep them around, player count will naturally wax and wane over time.

Additionally, I have a couple ideas to enhance the game (I'll post these in the suggestions thread too) --

1) Tag-team it! The new waves 'o enemies mechanic has it positives and negatives. (Really, 7+ enemies in a single wave?!) Allow players to form teams of 4-5+ while still keeping a 'standard' team of 3 and tap out charactrrs.

2) Swap meet. Allow players to swap unused covers with other members of their alliance. Not only would this create more player satisfaction, but it will provide another avenue for interaction between players and build better alliances. All of these factors combine to strengthen and enlarge the player base.

over_clocked

Not gonna read the whole thread since it bores me to tears, but as for non-filling brackets in PvE, I think it could be explained in two ways:

1) Most people pre-join or join early, having full brackets as soon as they they start and only leaving a comparative handful to join later brackets, and that handful is willing to game the sharding system enough to wait as long as needed for a fresh bracket, heavily distorting sharding for the vet brackets.

2) There are vet brackets and there are newbie brackets. Most people here on the forum only see one type. Hint: it's not the newbie brackets.
Who knows, maybe newbie brackets fill much faster since they have no idea about how to game sharding nor they really need to. As for vet brackets, at any given time there are at least 2 brackets open for any time slice, which adds to the state of the incomplete brackets.

Unknown

scottee wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Just wanted to chime in and say that while it's an interesting batch of numbers, those are very rough estimates. And looking at our historicals, not very close ones either. I wouldn't read much into any of those three metrics in our case.

Wait, you mean random internet guys don't know more than the developers? Pfffft, like that's likely.

I very rarely see more than 1K people in Game as report by steam so the data on steam charts is not a million miles out unless Valve does not collect the numbers correctly.

Unknown

Sumilea wrote:

scottee wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Just wanted to chime in and say that while it's an interesting batch of numbers, those are very rough estimates. And looking at our historicals, not very close ones either. I wouldn't read much into any of those three metrics in our case.

Wait, you mean random internet guys don't know more than the developers? Pfffft, like that's likely.

I very rarely see more than 1K people in Game as report by steam so the data on steam charts is not a million miles out unless Valve does not collect the numbers correctly.

Steam only tracks players using steam to access mpq though. Wouldn't represent anything regarding mobile users.

GrumpySmurf1002

A logical answer to why slices are no longer filling later in the event is that players now begin to join, and thus are bracketed, as soon as the pop-up hits. In the case of slice 4, that's ~18 hours prior. (I think it's available 3 hours before start of 1st slice). That's leaving relatively few players (i.e mostly forumites) left to join after the event starts, which of course then are divided among 5 different slices and possible 2-3 different potential brackets.

It goes back in part to what the median player is in this game. The median player is [likely] nowhere near the transition, let alone cares about the competition or even cares that they're getting trucked. They're the Candy Crush player that now is trying to 'beat the level,' in this case either a prologue node or the special bonus levels that pop up here and there.

For the competitive player, the immediate turn off is definitely not the 270 game, you wouldn't even know it existed. The problem is that you get to keep about 10 characters in the first month, if you're lucky. My freebie account that I started a month ago is still looking for 375HP to unlock the next 3 roster spots, and there's no obvious way (besides paying) to accrue that quickly when you can't compete in PvP/PvE. Now, if you consider this like a game where there's a demo and you need to pay to unlock the rest of the content, then I guess the model sort of works, but that to me is where you risk your cannon fodder. (Oh roster spots are a problem, who knew?)

As far as the numbers, when I click on your link today, it says there are 171k active users, which seems to jive more in line (given progression) with what they posted in their infographic (http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/2/689307 ... os-android) for the initial Deadpool event (144,340 players).

Unknown

A common statistics cited for MMORPG is that 20% of the total subscribers are on during the average peak time, and while that's not quite the same as a 'daily active user', you'd assume MPQ has significantly lower time played per session and Steam measures average players at any given time. If there are 600 concurrent players on average then I think it's very safe to estimate there are at least 6000 daily active users on Steam (for this to work out people would have to play MPQ on average 2.4 hours every day, which seems excessively high as an estimate for average). This is an amount that is more than enough to get an accurate picture of the whole game UNLESS there is reason to believe that Steam players are fundamentally different from the average player. This may be the case but I see no reason to believe this until I see numbers that shows the average Steam players have nothing in common with the average mobile user.

Now using Steam's numbers the player base seems kind of stable but we've had the playerbase fragmented into about 1/10 of what it used to be with 5 time slices and at least two types of brackets (could be more). The more you divide up your population the more likely people will feel the effect of a lack of players since each fragment is much smaller and more sensitive to any small change. If you go to the 'bracket is at XYZ people' bracket I'm seeing an awful a lot of 'avoid this bracket don't join' and you can come up with all the rationalization you want for why certain brackets are not filling, but there is nothing remotely positive you can spin on it. It might not mean anything wrong is with the game, but there's also no way it means everything is doing fine.

Unknown

It's also clear that this is a long term game to get anywhere. If we look at the rewards breakdown,
Top players get 4* progression rewards.
Second tier gets 3* progression rewards to flush out their roster.
Transitioned teams get their 3* reward.
...
1-2* teams get random covers while playing, as well as the thrill of having a level 60 on their team to beat up other teams.

What do the 2-3* transition teams get? 25 hp and an event token. Ever since the introduction of Deadpool dailies, transition targets have just dried out after 400. OBW Ares + a shield is no longer enough to get top 100 in a veteran bracket. If a 2* transition team wants to get a 3* cover, it will take hours more effort and some hp for a shot, most likely not worth it to the average player, and sometimes it just doesn't pan out.

Many forumites tell newcomers, "this is a long game; you have to work months to get competitive," because that's how we did it right? Ha! Most mobile games don't capture people attention for more than a month or 2. Admittedly, it's fun to have a boss battle, one that you know you're going to lose several times before you can finally beat them. When you do beat the boss team (lvl 166's) finally, it's like yes! I finally did it! I get the 3* cover! And then to be told that you have to do it over and over again, every 3 days? With battle losses on top of it? It's nice to be able to beat a hard challenge, but you'd expect to move onto the next challenge, not be stuck in the same place for months. Only the most determined/addicted players can take that type of repeated beating for the thrill of the few victories. It's no surprise that the middle class of MPQ have largely quit PVP, and many MPQ altogether.

I think T150 is reasonable considering where the game is now.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

Admittedly, it's fun to have a boss battle, one that you know you're going to lose several times before you can finally beat them. When you do beat the boss team (lvl 166's) finally, it's like yes! I finally did it! I get the 3* cover! And then to be told that you have to do it over and over again, every 3 days? With battle losses on top of it? It's nice to be able to beat a hard challenge, but you'd expect to move onto the next challenge, not be stuck in the same place for months. Only the most determined/addicted players can take that type of repeated beating for the thrill of the few victories. It's no surprise that the middle class of MPQ have largely quit PVP, and many MPQ altogether.

I think T150 is reasonable considering where the game is now.

It's more like you beat the boss (level 166 team) only to realize there are 15 more bosses after him and some of them are like a boss relative to the team you thought was the boss (usually a team with X Force).

I'm opposed to making rewards more available just because the competitive events are a broken model to begin with so if you're going to fix that, add more non competitive content instead. I'm looking at the prologue, and Call Him Ragnarok was a great boss battle, even back when he had 2 AP Thunderclap. He was incredibly hard even with AP+3 all boosts and various broken characteres but you have a shot at some HP for beating him (2 slots of HP I think?) Enemy of the State had heroic tokens on the survival nodes, which are probably meant to be 'boss' battles. Certainly, they're far better award than the typical PvE node. However, I think they need to clean up the balance because I can see the hestiation to give out good stuff on a boss battle that someone's going to just drop mega Whales on for the instant win, or just run some infinite combo. For the survival nodes you can also just farm AP while it's safe (goons only, or only a weak hero is left) and then take out whatever hard guys waiting for you with 30 AP of all colors. So currently a 'boss' battle is really not all that challenging, but that's something they can fix.

GrumpySmurf1002

Phantron wrote:

If you go to the 'bracket is at XYZ people' bracket I'm seeing an awful a lot of 'avoid this bracket don't join' and you can come up with all the rationalization you want for why certain brackets are not filling, but there is nothing remotely positive you can spin on it. It might not mean anything wrong is with the game, but there's also no way it means everything is doing fine.

My basic premise is that the "is the bracket full?" thread is a poor representation of where we're at as far as the population playing. In general, taking anything the forum does and trying to extrapolate it to the entire player base will lead you down the wrong path.

My hypothesis is that you have multitudes of brackets filling up before the event even starts, so there's nothing to report on those. By the time the event starts and those brackets reported are being filled, you're down to a small population of players that have yet to join. This makes it such that those later brackets take longer to fill. Note that the early parts of those threads, the brackets still fill relatively quickly (~2-3hours)

As far as extrapolation of data, if you're assuming Steam's activity approximates the player base as a whole, and that said data also shows relative stability, then it seems proper to infer that the Deadpool number is also the number of PvE players today, which again is in the 144k range. Now maybe we're just quibbling over what 'active' means in this sense, but I think you're reading wayyyyyyy too much into a bracket not filling.

MarvelDestiny

Phantron wrote:

Compare this game to say, Pet Rescue Saga which pulls double the money but has 20 times the daily active users (about 1 million). So obviously, MPQ gets very good mileage out of each individual user compared to other games.

However, I think MPQ has an inherent skill cap issue that makes it unlikely to ever have say 250K daily users because this game is harder than it looks. I know a lot of mobile games you get an option where the computer plays for you and generally speaking you've enough of an advantage that you can easily have the AI play for you while farming. Try to do that in PvP (AI plays exactly the same way as it does on defense) and I'll be very surprised if you could get past 300 PvP points in one sitting no matter who you have. Now you don't have to have millions of players to be successful, but a lot of this game is built inherently on an assumption of fairly large player base. After all, a lot of people have to lose in any particular PvP/PvE event if we define losing as not getting a 3*. If all the people who usually lose quit then someone else now has to lose because only a certain % of people can win. Likewise the existence of difficult brackets is going to get worse because someone else has to fill in the spot for the death bracket if a previous player left. It seems to me this game has heavy fragmenting and divides its existing base into many small subsection as a function of time slice/shard (roughly correlated with performance) but you can get to a point where the divison is too fine. In Lethal Intent I started at 0 with 5 hours to go, worked my way to 800, shielded, and got hit exactly once during the entire event. While my team is very strong, this can't possibly have happened back when everyone is in the same time slice. Now you might say that sounds great to be able to do easily get to a score without being attacked, but if it's always like this what's the point to even compete when you might get attacked once?

I don't think this is a 'survival' issue, but rather that they really need to start thinking about how much they're dividing up what seems to be a relatively low number of players to begin with. Unless there's plan to go recruit another 50K people to join the game daily, I'm guessing what we have right now is likely it, and that's perfectly fine to support the game but don't take a small playerbase and divide it into 5 time slices and then at least 2 or 3 brackets based on performance (and probably more than that). At some point it's going to be way too fragmented.

I agree with all points, however, I still stand by my post regarding keeping multiple shards available to maximize the player base. This thread is important to every player who wants to see MPQs longevity lengthen. One of the biggest flaws that needs to be tweaked is bracketing based on performance. It is not uncommon for me to only be able to fight a few rounds in any given pvp event before teams that far outclass me start filling up the screen. I still have plenty of fight in me and plenty of characters to draw from but when the opponents start outclassing me by several dozen levels it becomes disheartening. Because of this dynamic, I never get the chance to become competitive and the rewards are paltry for the points/rank I am able to attain in the meantime. (Yeah, yeah, I can already hear the veteran MPQ players start to whine -- you walked uphill both ways through the snow with no jacket, I get it.) But if we are to HAVE an MPQ for much longer than another year or so the game MUST appeal to more people. The Halls of Valhalla will fill with scores of 166ers and 270s. What will become of your much-vaunted advancement when MPQ goes the way of the dodo?

More than just performance should be considered for pvp events. Perhaps a weight class based on character level, largest pool of starred characters (ie, more 2* or 3*), raw number of covers (and, hence, avail powers), or number of capped characters. I'm not saying finding a solution will be easy but hopefully these ideas will help get the ball rolling.

One thing is certain, any system that requires participants to purposely lose on a regular basis in order to be competitive in the future is flawed and will ultimately fail.

Unknown

The difference between mpq and most other popular mobile games is that in mpq, you can't be successful by spending a small amount of time on it each day. Other games like clash of clans or candy crush allow you to spend a little bit of time each day to eventually be successful. Unless you get lucky with a token, you won't get many covers simply by play 15 minutes a day (with the exception of deadpool daily quest which is one of the best additions ever to mpq (in my opinion)). For mpq to be successful with a larger audience, they will have to find some way to give players an incentive to play. Lowering the shield simulator rewards in half would seriously help (so 1200 is the final reward and maybe add ISO every 100 points after that to give players a reward for climbing). That way, more people will use Shield sim for their season points, gives 1* players the incentive to push for 2* rewards, and give 2* players a chance at getting the 3* reward. Also, maybe have that 1 node in overall season (to try out a new 4*) give out 1k ISO a day to whoever plays it. That would definetely help anyone trying to train their characters to higher levels. These additions would also allow someone to feel like they've accomplished something after 15 minutes of play without giving away 3* and 4* for free.

Matthewking72

Perhaps I am way off base here, but it seems like just increasing the draw rate for the heroic and event tokens would go a long ways. It would increase the odds that a transition player will get some help in their transition, and also provide more iso for the higher end players. Right now, the tokens are a joke...I have a better 3/4* draw rate from standard tokens than regular heroic tokens since the end of last season, and the event token draw rate isn't much higher. Make the tokens that you get at 300/800 worth something, and while you are at it, swap out the 2* at 500 in pvp. Put another token here, make it an incentive worthwhile for the transition player to go after. I agree that more non-competitive content seems like it would be the best long term solution to keep players and get new casual players, but that is a significant amount of work. Changing the draw rates, not so much work. And it also might make it worthwhile to purchase tokens....as it is now, buying tokens is like playing the lottery. With the exception of a very few, it is just throwing your money away.

Unknown

Phantron is making some really great points. This entire game is a pyramid scheme. Another way to say this is the entire game is based on bullying. The problem becomes what happens when people decide they no longer want to be abused? Phantron is talking about the 2* players but the same thing happens to 3*s. In fact I would argue 2* gain the most from maxxing their first couple 94s because they can suddenly compete for a Top100 in PvP. On the flip side, very little changes when you get your first couple 166s.

I can tell you flat out the single most disappointing day for me in my MPQ career was last season when I finally maxxed my first two 3*s (Daken and Thor). I immediately jump into in PVP and then found out: nothing changed. There is a still a wall, but now it is a 4* wall. There is no tangible increase in reward for a Top50. You need a Top25 for an extra cover and you better be prepared to shield hop if you want a T25 with a 3* roster. Extreme shield hoping will be needed if you want to try for a T10 and you will be completing with 270s for those slots.

Eventually you will realize that all you are doing is helping the 270s get a T25 and that 3* cover you get from a T25 won't actually help you against the 270s. Once you make this realization, you'll quickly come to see that all you really should do is push high enough for a Top100 and stop. If you have played enough games you will then recognize that you have just mentally quit the game and are now going through the motions. You will probably log off and go cruise the app store for a new game.

What is really interesting is I also play Clash of Clans (going on 1.5 years). This game is also based on PVP but you cannot bully people because the rewards for beating people below your level are drastically reduced. You need to fight people at your level or you are wasting your time. Clash also takes a faction of the time of MPQ and you can take days off with minimal impact.

Unknown

I'm also going to go on a lark and say that the end goal should be getting people to play more. Increasing token odds might not necessarily do that for most people; generally when you're on the cusp of winning a heroic+ token, you'll already go for it. The 3/4* rate for a standard token is about 2.5 % and the heroic rate is about 5+ time s that. (@Matthewking72) You must have quite incredible luck with standard tokens or horrible luck with heroic tokens. Although most Event tokens are duds, I've sometimes hit the featured character with them. Keeping 1 each of 1*, 2*, 3*, and 4* in progression rewards seems reasonable as well.

Increasing 3* rewards to T150 would probably increase play from T50 to T250 or so in the veteran brackets, a good 1/3 of the vet population. That'd provide a stronger base for every in the T100 to grind off of.

But I've gone on about this long enough for something that's not going to happen. I agree that the better solution would be to release more content so players aren't tied to any one format.

MarvelMan

MarvelDestiny wrote:

One of the biggest flaws that needs to be tweaked is bracketing based on performance.

This is true, but not in the way you meant. Performance based bracketing needs to be eliminated, or the rewards changed to compensate. Right now, easy brackets and death brackets fight for the same prizes because rewards are/were (apparently) designed so that players fell roughly into the reward tier where they needed the prize. If you split brackets by performance that completely falls apart, as we are seeing.