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aesthetocyst
aesthetocyst Posts: 538 Critical Contributor
edited May 2018 in MPQ General Discussion
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  • GothicKratos
    GothicKratos Posts: 1,821 Chairperson of the Boards
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    First, I want to say that I'm not trying to devalue your statements, because I understand your sentiments - I play rather casually myself and it's by far the best decision I've made as far as this game is considered - but you really made me think with one of your statements.
    Shield hopping requires speed. Changes to the game are all in the direction of reducing speed. Lower offense vs higher health = longer matches. It's a gift basket for snipers.

    "Things are slowed down for snipers too," you might say. You don't get it. The longer a player is unshielded, the greater the likelihood a coincidental hit will land. If this unshielded player tries 2, slower fights, anyone who queued them up during that first fight will finish attacking before the poor player finishes his second.

    I've really thought for a long time that it wasn't necessarily that the developers were disconnected with the "high end players", but that they didn't desire there to be a significant "high end player" advantage. I truly believe that the developers wish to create a game that is truly casual in spirit. What if these things are their way of trying to focus in on the gameplay style of playing for awhile, dropping a shield, and coming back in a few hours?

    I don't know if they're going about everything "the right way", but if that's the goal in mind, is that necessarily a bad thing? The biggest complaint is the game is too much grind, so what if their end game is to remove the required grind?
  • Arondite
    Arondite Posts: 1,188 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I've really thought for a long time that it wasn't necessarily that the developers were disconnected with the "high end players", but that they didn't desire there to be a significant "high end player" advantage. I truly believe that the developers wish to create a game that is truly casual in spirit. What if these things are their way of trying to focus in on the gameplay style of playing for awhile, dropping a shield, and coming back in a few hours?


    Then pvp progression rewards need to be cut by about half, with the 4 star reward coming at 500 points lol
  • mouser
    mouser Posts: 529 Critical Contributor
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    I've really thought for a long time that it wasn't necessarily that the developers were disconnected with the "high end players", but that they didn't desire there to be a significant "high end player" advantage. I truly believe that the developers wish to create a game that is truly casual in spirit. What if these things are their way of trying to focus in on the gameplay style of playing for awhile, dropping a shield, and coming back in a few hours?
    ?

    Except you can no longer drop a shield and come back in a few hours unless you buy an even more expensive shield afterward. The whole shield cool down mechanic is very anti-casual unless you're using one towards the end of the PVP and plan to stay shielded till the PVP is over.
  • Stax the Foyer
    Stax the Foyer Posts: 941 Critical Contributor
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    I don't know if they're going about everything "the right way", but if that's the goal in mind, is that necessarily a bad thing? The biggest complaint is the game is too much grind, so what if their end game is to remove the required grind?

    That would be a great move. But the grind is really a function of the focus on ranking awards, rather than progression awards. The grind will expand to fill the alloted space as long as only a small fraction of players get meaningful awards.

    PvE is more grindy than PvP, because there's more people who have a legitimate shot at competing for the top awards (and because of the slow node decay which makes the last few hours of a sub the determining factor in top awards). If their goal is to make things less grindy, making more people capable of competing for top ranking awards doesn't seem like the right way to go about it.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I truly believe that the developers wish to create a game that is truly casual in spirit.
    If that's true, they're doing a really, really, really bad job of it. All you have to do is look at all the taglines in the "HP Suck" posters to see they're doing anything but promoting casual gameplay.
  • Vinmarc43
    Vinmarc43 Posts: 266
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    I think to promote casual gaming, they need to get rid of alliances, and I don't think thats going to happen.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,303 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I started playing in Dec 2013. I left in August 2014.

    On a slow, snowed-in day in Feb 2015, I logged on. A lot had changed, there were new characters, the X-Force I had laying around since the beginning had been brought up to speed.

    Catching up the second half od Season XI, I had a great ride in Season XII, despite being 5 months behind the times.

    Now, I see the game continuing to change, to cater to new players, as they must in their scramble to keep it going.

    Between time shards being isolated (they don't need to be ... just have players in earlier times in brackets tied to those end times, and treated as being shielded once those times are passed. Let everyone "see" everyone, and feed more targets into qs. There; problems of swarm attacks and broken qs reduced.), cooldowns (you really want to kill shieldhopping? reverse the mechanic. Require 30min to pass before a player can re-shield. Hopping dies, shields become the "breaks" they were intended(?) to be.), and the recent changes neutering offense, and now boosting health .... PVP is returning to the state it was in when before shields were introduced.

    Shield hopping requires speed. Changes to the game are all in the direction of reducing speed. Lower offense vs higher health = longer matches. It's a gift basket for snipers.

    "Things are slowed down for snipers too," you might say. You don't get it. The longer a player is unshielded, the greater the likelihood a coincidental hit will land. If this unshielded player tries 2, slower fights, anyone who queued them up during that first fight will finish attacking before the poor player finishes his second.

    Value of experience in the game at large, of connection to the community beyond the game, is being reduced.

    So, toss it. Go casual. No more shields, no more spending on heals. I can place top 25, 50 at worst based on roster strength.

    And PVE verses scaled, health-boosted opponents, with offense-neutered toons? Right.

    Wait you came back in Feb and had a great ride? My, if all the rage-quitting threads back in February were to be believed, that was Demiurge's peak of incompetence and greed. And same in January, and December, etc., and of course April 2015. The sky is always falling. People who got enamoured with certain features of the game that eventually needed to be changed for the overall good of the game will be outraged when they feel personally robbed. And so it goes. Somehow, though, throughout ever single prediction (and wishes) of imminent doom, MPQ has kept growing and keeps being a fun game that is enjoyed by thousands. If you no longer can get that enjoyment, that's sad, but definitely you should go the way that is best for your peace of mind.