This moves you from genially clueless to something less so

simonsez

jojeda654 wrote:

rednailz wrote:

Ehh...I'd say it is. The title of the thread is basically " I thought you were stupid before but NOW..." but with a little more flourish.

Nah, he called them "genial". That's a way nicer word than anyone's ever given ME around here...

Pylgrim

I really do not understand the dissenters/white knights. Yes, it sounds all very zen to say "pace yourself", "relax, you don't need them all", "if it's too stressful just let it go" and so on, but don't you realise how it is bad for the game itself? If I have to say "tinykitty this, I'm not grinding for another week for a small chance to get a new 4* star cover that I won't be completing anytime soon, especially right after another week of grinding to get a new character", am I not setting myself up for apathy? Once I let go one character that I'd normally try to get if it wasn't for the ridiculousness of back to back events, what is my drive for the next characters? Eh, I'm already missing Kingpin and it's all good, whatever.

It really feels like greedily wringing the neck of the golden egg goose. "Our players will kill themselves for a week to get one cover? Let's see if they will do it over two weeks! Make the character just released essential to punish those who didn't play the first so they will learn to play every single one!" I dunno, I'm extremely disappointed and I'm really having a hard time understanding all the cavalier people in this thread. "Demiurge literally went back on their own word about back to back new characters? Eh, it's ok. If it makes you angry just don't play." Isn't it more responsible to voice our concerns to try to stop these things from happening? I can't help to think that all this zen people actually don't care about the game that much and don't care if the people who do care get rightful emotional reactions over literal broken promises.

GrimSkald

Generally speaking, they've been pretty regular with the release schedule - a new character every other week on Sunday or Monday night. Kamala was actually slightly late - she came in two days late on Wednesday night. So Kingpin will be about five days early - coming out Wednesday night rather than the Monday night after.

Not excusing anything, just going over the timing. Speaking for myself, I think a new character every two weeks is unsustatinable and bad for the game. I know, new characters are necessary to keep the older players interested - at this point I'm even one of them with 20 cover-maxxed characters. The pace, though, is very fast. This creates the following issues:

- first and formost it puts a high HP burden on the players. It is difficult to stay ahead of the curve without spending money, and even with spending money it will eventually become next-to-impossible. This also means that money spent on roster slots won't be used on other things like covers, shields, and boosts.

- it adds minimal content to the game. Most players grind for the PVE, get their 1-3 covers, then get 2-3 more in the PVP. At that point the character sits at 5 covers for weeks. You will get a trickle of covers from tokens, but the chances there are poor. Essentially the character is all-important for about 10 days (you're focused on the character when you're trying to get them, then on their featured PVE,) then become almost-completely irrelevant. Lather, rinse, repeat. Since they do not add PVEs at anything approaching a reasonable rate, the only time you will see that character again will be in the Gauntlet or the Simulator.

- it prevents PVE from getting a sense of normality. At the every-other-week release schedule typically every PVE will be either a) awarding or b) featuring a new character. This means that the only PVEs that both award and feature established characters are the occassional odd one out in the middle when they run PVEs that are shorter. This means that established rosters do not have a chance to shine as much as they should, and building rosters build much slower.

- it makes the 2* -> 3* transition slower. Every new character means there will be one more PVP in the mix, and a slightly lower chance of getting the ones you need out of the tokens. It is actually worse with the 4*s - the chances of getting them is so low that adding them to the tokens makes it really hard to get the ones you need, and another 4* in the awards cycle slows people down even further.

This is my opinion, but I think they should pad it out by another week or so - a new character roughly every three weeks feels better to me. It will give them a chance to get in an extra PVE (probably two, actually,) between releases and make the PVE schedule more flexible. I think what they need to do is add more actual content to the game - more PVEs (finish off the Dark Reign story finally,) and possibly more variety to the PVPs.

Unknown

Colognoisseur wrote:

But as I become less engaged with the game that is one less whale spending money. If this is a pattern among others who spend money then these kind of moves will be problematic for the long term health of the game. It might just be me, it might be more than me, who knows? As with everything time will tell.

This resonates with me: Colog, it's not just you. I hope you don't mind me linking your valid point with other recent history to highlight a theme here.

The 4* PVE top50 reward scheme was so disruptive to alliances that my alliance went PVP only. Then came the 4hor over-nerf, with rumors of a looming X force nerf which triggered me to go F2P. Then came the recent pvp test format empowering 3* much closer to 4* range. This confluence of factors diminished the attractiveness of 4* chars in general for me and others i talk with. Our response in each case was increased disengagement.

The return on investment ratio (ROI) is reducing: The relative return for 4* is decreasing (nerfs, test pvp format) and the investment (grind time effort, frequency, and reward structure) is increasing --> another 4* is released in a 7 day PVE back to back with a 3*. This is another increase on the investment side of ratio.

I and many others sympathized with the "season of regression" thread the other day which highlighted the need to have something to strive for really worth striving for. Colog's comment above highlights for me just another link in a chain of events driving whales (i.e. Spend several hundred $ or more, as I was) to disengage, stop investing (as much) time and/or money -- my sense is the ROI is becoming too extremely diminished, for me and apparently other fellow whales.

rednailz

jojeda654 wrote:

rednailz wrote:

I dont' see it as an ad hominem attack, more like honest personal feedback on agreed upon terms.

Ehh...I'd say it is. The title of the thread is basically " I thought you were stupid before but NOW..." but with a little more flourish.




Hope I don't get another warning for paraphrasing...

I call that creative headlining. There is no personal basis of attack either, the basis of the attack is centered around the events of a game, not personal shortcommings, although the basis of game development is leading to assumptions of Will's (developer's) intelligence; however, I don't think it's baselss and I'd have to agree. Clearly the developers are unable to grasp the general feel of the community from hundreds upon hundreds of posts about the displeassure of charecter realease rates and decisions. So this suggests one or two reasons: 1. They aren't able to get what everyone is telling them, or 2. They don't care. Colog expresses dissapointment of one possiblity, and dipleassure of the 2nd. As far as "internet attacks" go, I'd say it's tasteful and mild but yet still clearly expresses outrate, and too me it doesn't appear he's making it personal, although he is taking it personally a little.

Unknown

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*. Step away from PVE, enjoy life again, quit scheduling your life around a game. You might enjoy it.

Unknown

Tannen wrote:

Having just come back from a break I notice that there's a ... false dichotomy in how people are reacting to new characters.

When I was playing before I distinctly remember going a month+ without any new characters, people complaining that whichever pvp/pve was being run, was being run again with the same character (pun pun) and that they'd leave for greener pastures unless some new characters were released.

Now we appear to be on the complete flip side of that, where characters are being released far more regularly but we have people complaining that it's a cash grab and now people are going to leave for greener pastures unless the character release schedule is slowed down.

Heh. Carry on good people, carry on. I don't really have anything to add to the conversation other than that observation and that personally I'm kinda liking the new release schedule myself, but that's because of what I remember from the past and I guess because I'm not (currently) pushing that hard for all 3 covers on every new release.

Cheers.

I'm not really sure when you're refering to. The only time I can remember a large gap in the release of new characters was when I started playing back in October 2013. The game was quite young back then and a lot (everything?) has changed. I can't recall anyone complaining about lack of new characters for more than 15 months.

Unknown

Switchman wrote:

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*.

For a lot of us, it isn't "you might have to wait." It's "now or never." If I don't get a Kingpin now, I'm not getting one until it's either a season or a daily reward, unless I luck out with tokens.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

But as I become less engaged with the game that is one less whale spending money.

If I'm running my business with any sort of rational thoughts in my head, when one of my best customers says he's become "less engaged", I'd be **** my pants and scrambling for ideas to fix it.

via Imgflip Meme Maker

Vhailorx

Switchman wrote:

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*. Step away from PVE, enjoy life again, quit scheduling your life around a game. You might enjoy it.

While not without value, this point (i.e., players don't NEED to play the game) is not really the issue. Colog's post, along with the many other similar threads on the forum are arguing that a super fast release schedule, especially one heavy of 4*s, is bad for the game overall.

Of course people don't NEED to play, that is self-evident. The point is that these changes are encouraging people NOT to play the game, and that seems like an unsustainable model for the game itself.

I think there is plenty of hyperbole on both sides of this debate (afterall, this is an internet message board, hyperbole is inevitable), but that doesn't mean that the underlying concerns about the overall game structure are not valid.

The dominant game structure from november through last week had problems, but it was at least comprehensible: 1* to 2* went pretty quickly. 2* to 3* took some more time and grinding and was the worst part of the game. 3* land was a ton of fun, and went fairly quickly once a player got 2 or 3 covered 3*s and joined a good alliance. 3* to 4* was an emerging problem, but mitigated by the fact that there were only 2 4*s worth anything. It was hard, but not quite impossible to get covers for xforce and 4*thor. The end game was completely dominated by thorverine.

Now the game structure is all jumbled up. 4*s make no sense; some are ok, some are ****, one of them is awesome but seems likely to be nerfed next month, and all of them are very very hard to get. The 4* release schedule seems to be accelerating, but the ease of getting 4*s is unchanged, meaning that there are now many more characters competing for the minuscule number of 4* covers given out as rewards (Prof. X is about to lose his status as the newest 4*, and yet the maximum possible number of covers anyone could possible have won for him from prog/placement rewards is what, six?). How can anyone build a 4* when they are given out so infrequently? In a game where 4*s are essential to endgame play, that pace of reward is unacceptable. And if 4*s aren't supposed to be a big part of the endgame, why are the devs wasting so many resources on them? make new PVE content instead. What is the player progression flowchart supposed to look like after someone gets a decent 3* roster? I don't really know what it is anymore, and worse, I'm not sure the devs know either. Maybe they have a vision, but I don't think they have communicated it to the playerbase.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Switchman wrote:

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*.

For a lot of us, it isn't "you might have to wait." It's "now or never." If I don't get a Kingpin now, I'm not getting one until it's either a season or a daily reward, unless I luck out with tokens.

1-4 covers in a 4* is the same as 0 covers in a 4*. If that's your only chance, there's no point in the first place.

My post was only indended for OP who has probably put thousands into a game and is complaining about not being able to get his covers right away. If you have OCD to colelct em all, you have OCD to mindlessly grind PVe nonstop 24/7 365.

Scoregasms

Switchman wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Switchman wrote:

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*.

For a lot of us, it isn't "you might have to wait." It's "now or never." If I don't get a Kingpin now, I'm not getting one until it's either a season or a daily reward, unless I luck out with tokens.

1-4 covers in a 4* is the same as 0 covers in a 4*. If that's your only chance, there's no point in the first place.

Hmm, I beg to differ, 1 cover is all you need to do the 4* essential nodes at the very least. It's not like they will ever give 4*'s as PVE progression rewards. Provided the next PVE is for an existing 3*, I'm totally OK with that and that this anomaly of back-to-back new character releases is just that, an anomaly. But it doesn't seem to make sense to make a new 4* essential for an old 3* character if they want folks to be buying character packs.

I dunno, I am hoping the next PVE is for an existing 3*, but who knows with Avengers 2 coming out in a month with whatever external factors are at play here. You'd think they want to drum up excitement for the new DD Netflix show and Avengers movie via this game, but if anything, they are just building up negativity towards both for some folks here.

GuntherBlobel

Scoregasms wrote:

Switchman wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Switchman wrote:

Maybe they figure this will spread out the wealth? Those who grinded last week won't grind this week. More players having a better chance at winning this week.

You guys are funny. Quit stressing. You don't have to have ALL chars the second they come out. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. The horror you might need to go an extra month without a maxed 4*.

For a lot of us, it isn't "you might have to wait." It's "now or never." If I don't get a Kingpin now, I'm not getting one until it's either a season or a daily reward, unless I luck out with tokens.

1-4 covers in a 4* is the same as 0 covers in a 4*. If that's your only chance, there's no point in the first place.

Hmm, I beg to differ, 1 cover is all you need to do the 4* essential nodes at the very least.

But, since only 50 people per bracket get a 4* cover, you won't be at a huge competitive disadvantage in the next PvE, which will likely award a 3* to the Top 150. It'll be ok.

I know... we all want a chance to win 1st place. But, by design, the game enforces diminishing returns to such a degree that wanting or expecting 1st place is a bit crazy to begin with. It's such an insane amount of effort that it's hardly worth complaining about.

Unknown

camichan wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

But as I become less engaged with the game that is one less whale spending money. If this is a pattern among others who spend money then these kind of moves will be problematic for the long term health of the game. It might just be me, it might be more than me, who knows? As with everything time will tell.

This resonates with me: Colog, it's not just you. I hope you don't mind me linking your valid point with other recent history to highlight a theme here.

The 4* PVE top50 reward scheme was so disruptive to alliances that my alliance went PVP only. Then came the 4hor over-nerf, with rumors of a looming X force nerf which triggered me to go F2P. Then came the recent pvp test format empowering 3* much closer to 4* range. This confluence of factors diminished the attractiveness of 4* chars in general for me and others i talk with. Our response in each case was increased disengagement.

The return on investment ratio (ROI) is reducing: The relative return for 4* is decreasing (nerfs, test pvp format) and the investment (grind time effort, frequency, and reward structure) is increasing --> another 4* is released in a 7 day PVE back to back with a 3*. This is another increase on the investment side of ratio.

I and many others sympathized with the "season of regression" thread the other day which highlighted the need to have something to strive for really worth striving for. Colog's comment above highlights for me just another link in a chain of events driving whales (i.e. Spend several hundred $ or more, as I was) to disengage, stop investing (as much) time and/or money -- my sense is the ROI is becoming too extremely diminished, for me and apparently other fellow whales.

All of your reasons and Colog's are why I'm done with the game. I've dropped over $1,000 in the past year on this game for competitive/time saving advantages. I loved this game and my love constantly diminished over the past couple of months, especially with the fact of them making 4* a waste of time and energy. This is another whale signing off.

MarvelMan

Im not a whale by any means (F2P) but the lack of clear direction for progression combined with increasing difficulty of fully covering chars has diminished my passion for the game.

I worked fairly hard to get the covers for SheThor and had bought two blues the week before the nerf was announced....and its just demoralizing. I cant really figure out what I can or want to work towards. I want to cover IF or Luke....but how can I do that? My options are lottery tickets (tokens) or scrimp/save to gather the HP for covers. Im doing both. Having opened 100+ heroic/event tokens and gotten no covers for either char, and barely anything useful (whoo hoo! SG!), Im resigned to watching my HP slowly go up as I play to 700+, then push into the 800s at the end of event after event, maybe using a 3hr shield. In the time it takes me to get enough HP for a cover....they've released two more chars. If Im lucky, they are both **** and wont need me to focus on them. If even one is above average....I slide further behind.

I fully get that Im F2P and therefore shouldnt be able to keep up with the pace of release without serious time investment, but its just not even close any more. Im not ready to give up on MPQ (mostly because I havent found anything else) but if/when I do, Ill quietly bid my alliance good bye and uninstall, just another lost member of a shrinking community.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

Im not a whale by any means (F2P) but the lack of clear direction for progression combined with increasing difficulty of fully covering chars has diminished my passion for the game.

I worked fairly hard to get the covers for SheThor and had bought two blues the week before the nerf was announced....and its just demoralizing. I cant really figure out what I can or want to work towards. I want to cover IF or Luke....but how can I do that? My options are lottery tickets (tokens) or scrimp/save to gather the HP for covers. Im doing both. Having opened 100+ heroic/event tokens and gotten no covers for either char, and barely anything useful (whoo hoo! SG!), Im resigned to watching my HP slowly go up as I play to 700+, then push into the 800s at the end of event after event, maybe using a 3hr shield. In the time it takes me to get enough HP for a cover....they've released two more chars. If Im lucky, they are both **** and wont need me to focus on them. If even one is above average....I slide further behind.

I fully get that Im F2P and therefore shouldnt be able to keep up with the pace of release without serious time investment, but its just not even close any more. Im not ready to give up on MPQ (mostly because I havent found anything else) but if/when I do, Ill quietly bid my alliance good bye and uninstall, just another lost member of a shrinking community.

I found marvel mighty heroes and Star Wars galactic defense...both interesting enough to make my mpq hiatus seem more like a permanent thing...but I'm still early on those so we will see.

JVReal

Not to minimize anybody's concerns, because they are all valid concerns, this game is still in much, much better shape than some other games out there. MPQ on it's worst day is 1000% better than Transformers Legends (Dena) on its best day (which hasn't had a best day in 6 months to a year).

You want to see a game run by a money hungry company with incompetent programmers, please install and play Transformers Legends and read their facebook page, and you'll see that MPQ is paradise in comparison.

When I get frustrated with MPQ, I think back to Transformers Legends and say to myself... it could be worse, much worse.

Unknown

JVReal wrote:

Not to minimize anybody's concerns, because they are all valid concerns, this game is still in much, much better shape than some other games out there. MPQ on it's worst day is 1000% better than Transformers Legends (Dena) on its best day (which hasn't had a best day in 6 months to a year).

You want to see a game run by a money hungry company with incompetent programmers, please install and play Transformers Legends and read their facebook page, and you'll see that MPQ is paradise in comparison.

When I get frustrated with MPQ, I think back to Transformers Legends and say to myself... it could be worse, much worse.

I only played that game for a month before I realized it was a joke. This one was the game I played longer than any other in my life.

Keyword WAS

Vankysher

JVReal wrote:

Not to minimize anybody's concerns, because they are all valid concerns, this game is still in much, much better shape than some other games out there. MPQ on it's worst day is 1000% better than Transformers Legends (Dena) on its best day (which hasn't had a best day in 6 months to a year).

You want to see a game run by a money hungry company with incompetent programmers, please install and play Transformers Legends and read their facebook page, and you'll see that MPQ is paradise in comparison.

When I get frustrated with MPQ, I think back to Transformers Legends and say to myself... it could be worse, much worse.

I understand the point you're trying to make - and it is valid - the thing with comparisons is that if we're constantly holding MPQ up to the worst out there, we're giving D3/Demiurge way too much credit. First thought that came to mind was "Look at that digital shantytown over there! At least my digital shantytown isn't that bad."

Dauthi

GothicKratos wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

Please, there is a huge difference between releasing a character every two months compared to once a week. Glad you got your break, now imagine those who have not, and have been here the whole time to stay competitive.

His point was not how hard it was for him before his break, his point is everyone bemoaned the slow pace of characters before, and now that they're coming in steadily, everyone wants to complain about it.

If this game is causing you too much stress, you probably need to reevaluate your priorities. He talked about how he stepped away and made a statement in light of that, there's no need to throw it in his face that you begrudgingly stuck around.

My point was either extreme is terrible, and tried to explain empathy towards those who didn't get the break he got. It's important understand how both extremes (too little/too many character releases) effect the players. D3 should hit the middle ground with releases/breaks (like they were doing), because one after the other is the complete extreme of too many character releases. I want to stay competitive, so why are they working me to death? Do they want me to quit?

It also annoys me when I think about how they wasted time by forcefully releasing King Pin (inciting anger among all the competitive players) instead of fixing other characters (something more practical).