MPQ creators - do you have a life? No, I'm not a jerk - read

wymtime

As a note to the OP I think D3 made this Ultron event with alliances and real life in mind. They might have failed horribly, but look at what it was like.
#1 no alliance hopping, so no mercing, no fighting against every other player in the game.
#2 true 8 hr refreshes where the game locks until the subs reopen. They are forcing us to put the game down and wait instead of grinding it into dust.
#3 Lots of good rewards. High level of HP dropping and better odds on Tokens.
#4 gauntlet style scaling and it didn't achieve gauntlet style craziness. Gauntlet is a forum favorite and the 3rd round is brutal since it limits rosters and has huge crazy levels. Round 7-8 was around 166 for the goons and the Prime really was not bad at all. Ultron was huge health, but beatable and felt boss like.
now the issues in why they failed.
#1 true 8hr refreshes. Becuase of this and Ultrons high health in the second run you had specific times you had to clear the Ultron event to try and complete on time.
#2 essentials being survival mode style. I like survival mode, but these really should have been for Ultron Prime. If the essentials were just the 3 goons it would still be hard, you could increase scaling and then have survival mode be Ultron Prime.
#3 the game locked after round 8 and Ultrons health in run 2. If The game didn't lock at the end of round 8 and had the health be like round 1 it would have been fine. they also need to spread out the points so Ultron has more health in early rounds. This will let more people play and get rewards. Hey could even extend the event for 24 hrs so more people could hit progression.
#4 they ran a PVE next to Ultron. Let me say that again they...ran...a...PVE...next...to...Ultron

A couple of tweets and this event would have been perfect. Some alliances would kill Ultron in 3 days because that is the way they choose to play while others could kill him in 5. This event has so much potential. It needs some tweaks, but it could be better than any PVE currently in the game.

san

wymtime wrote:

A couple of tweets and this event would have been perfect. Some alliances would kill Ultron in 3 days because that is the way they choose to play while others could kill him in 5. This event has so much potential. It needs some tweaks, but it could be better than any PVE currently in the game.

I shortened your post for ease of reading. I generally agree with you here. This was as close to considering real life as I have yet seen. Where I disagree, is on how close. I think there is much room for improvement. This is not just about Ultron, it's about the state of the game in general. My post was meant to spur discussion about an issue that is pervasive, that became more magnified in the Ultron PVE.

morph3us

wymtime wrote:

#1 true 8hr refreshes. Becuase of this and Ultrons high health in the second run you had specific times you had to clear the Ultron event to try and complete on time.

For me, this is the main reason why I'm slowly backing away from this game. Tying gameplay to specific times during the day is pretty much as unfriendly to real life as you can get. It's better than it was, with 8 hour refreshes, but at the same time, I'm past sneaking off to the loo to hit my node refreshes. It's just a bridge too far.

I've seen it suggested before that one solution is to provide a certain total point value in node stacks in a 24 hour period, and you can hit them whenever you want, and as much as you want. Personally, I like that idea, as I could play when I wanted, and as much as I wanted then. I can see the potential issue with it, though - it may not provide enough differentiation in the leaderboard for competitive PvE. Which brings me back to something that Gothic's brought up time and time again - real non-competitive PvE would be an amazing way to enjoy this game. The Ultron event came pretty close to that, but the contortions around forming an Alliance to achieve anything meaningful (if you weren't in one already), and the node refreshes tied to real-life stymied it, just a bit.

Lidolas

This game is so much more enjoyable when you give up on the idea of needing to place in every event. I play the characters I want to play. I level who I want to level. I play the nodes I want to play. And I let the chips fall where they land. It's a very fun game for a match-3 time waster, but the 'rewards' are almost never worth the time investment required.

Malcrof

wymtime wrote:

#2 essentials being survival mode style. I like survival mode, but these really should have been for Ultron Prime. If the essentials were just the 3 goons it would still be hard, you could increase scaling and then have survival mode be

This would make Prime a little too easy i think, you would have time to stockpile AP and just 1 or 2 shot him, with no chance at retaliation on his part if you planned it right.

MarvelMan

Malcrof wrote:

wymtime wrote:

#2 essentials being survival mode style. I like survival mode, but these really should have been for Ultron Prime. If the essentials were just the 3 goons it would still be hard, you could increase scaling and then have survival mode be

This would make Prime a little too easy i think, you would have time to stockpile AP and just 1 or 2 shot him, with no chance at retaliation on his part if you planned it right.

It would depend on how hard the minions with (or before) him would be. You could go multiple routes such as them being really hard so you would have to spend AP, or really easy so you couldnt gather much then have hard ones with him. I agree that fighting him was generally a let down vs the sentry survival nodes.

Malcrof

MarvelMan wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

wymtime wrote:

#2 essentials being survival mode style. I like survival mode, but these really should have been for Ultron Prime. If the essentials were just the 3 goons it would still be hard, you could increase scaling and then have survival mode be

This would make Prime a little too easy i think, you would have time to stockpile AP and just 1 or 2 shot him, with no chance at retaliation on his part if you planned it right.

It would depend on how hard the minions with (or before) him would be. You could go multiple routes such as them being really hard so you would have to spend AP, or really easy so you couldnt gather much then have hard ones with him. I agree that fighting him was generally a let down vs the sentry survival nodes.

I think they made the prime nodes easy on purpose. You just spent 1/2 your waking hours defeating a round with 20 other people.. the big reward for the round shouldn't cause you too much pain and suffering.

quick edit: My alliance didn't get to finish round 6 on the first run because of server issues, and we did not get through round 5 on run 2, so i do not know how hard the higher prime's were.

Nooneelsesname

Pylgrim wrote:

san-mpq wrote:

Now, we can throw out the elitist argument of "only the best and most dedicated should be getting the best rewards" which I agree with to an extent. But isn't the whole point of a game for everyone to play?

Answer: Everybody can play. But if you are asking whether everybody should play at the same level and get the same rewards regardless of effort, then the answer is a categorical No. There are several kind of games, but most games with a competitive edge to it (and MPQ has a huge one) create a meta where players that are more skilled/have more time to burn/have more money to get all perks/etc. are supposed to come ahead and get better rewards than those who doesn't. Tell me, if you with whatever little time you can put towards MPQ, believe that you should get all the rewards... what should the ones that can/are willing to put several hours per day into the game get? According to you, nothing else, or else you'll covet that too and demand to get it as well. This is not elitist talk, it merely is how any competitive activity work. You cannot demand the same trophy that is given to an athlete that has trained every singled day, several hours per day and rightfully beat you just because your "real life" didn't allow you time to train so intensively.

You still can play the game and have fun. You still can get some rewards. You'll just have a much slower progression than others that are able to play more intensively; and if you don't think that's fair, I don't know what to tell you. You may also consider about all the wonderful rewards that you are getting from spending time with your family and dogs and that many of the people who can play a game hardcore style are likely not getting.

Pylgrim wrote:

You call it "elitist" I call it "merit". A classical vocabulary difference between those who want things given away and those who earn them. The former cannot see how their wishes being granted would be ridiculously unfair to the latter and in fact, a complete discouragement from even trying.

Assassin's Creed is a one player person. MPQ is not the exception, all multiplayer games are like that. Or do you expect to jump in a game of Street Fighter, or Mario Kart, or LoL, or Magic the Gathering, or poker, or football or chess, or competitive pie-eating and be handed the victory and whatever attached rewards over your competitors (who have basically spend their life training to become good) just because someone feels bad that you simply are not able to put that much effort into it, but still want it really badly?

I disagree. The merit based model for distribution of luxury goods has some validity when those goods are physical and finite. That's not the case here. The limited supply of these rewards is completely artificial. And it's exacerbated by the fact that these rewards are the very tools you use to play the game. When you win a Hold-Em poker tournament, you don't get three hole cards in the next tournament you play. In chess, you don't get an extra queen. In pie-eating... um, I'm going to stop because that's kind of gross. The point is, I don't think that placing highly in one event should give you a great advantage in placing highly in the next one.

I don't know how D3 and Demiurge make their money. It definitely seems that they've identified roster slots as their revenue stream from people that don't buy token packs and well, they have to make money somehow. Maybe they feel it's highly necessary to keep the supply of covers limited. Maybe they feel that they need to have matches go longer and guarantee that people play on a set schedule. Maybe player hours leads to a lowered license fee, maybe they feel they need some measurable metric, I don't know.

But I know that we lost one the strongest members of our alliance family because he realized that he had to just sit next to his wife staring at his phone for two or three hours after putting their kids to bed if he wanted to experience the game's new content. He left the game, which I think is healthy. But I don't think it's healthy that the game demands that you put a part-time job's worth of time into it in order to fully play it.

Because this is a great game. It's challenging and interesting and fun. I downloaded Future Fight and it was incredibly mindless and boring. It literally has an autoplay button where you just watch your character blast through the level, and it feels like the same experience. It don't think this game needs all these Skinner box freemium tricks for people to play it. All these energy point/health pack/timer models are things you need to slap onto a bad game. This isn't one, you could take all that away and I think people would play the heck out of it.

What should the prize structure be? Easy to get: covers. Mediumish to get: HP. Super hard to get: vanity items. You want to grind your face off and win a 7 day PvE? Here's your Original Grey Suit Iron Man skin that doesn't add any functionality but goes over the Hulkbuster character so everyone that sees you in PvP knows you're amaaaaaazing. And do it with a ton of different characters. They switched Quicksilver's costume out quickly and seamlessly, make those kinds of things the reward. Don't make winning a hundred yard dash mean that you only have to run 90 next time.

And since you seem to think a player's "skill" adds credence to their argument, I've only finished out of the Top 2 once in 2015. Top 1 for Prof X and Kingpin. Currently Top 1 for IMHB. Plus the alliance stuff. Some people might mind other people getting the same rewards as them. I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't. We're playing a match 3 game, we're not "earning" anything. Let's all get to play.

This is a great game. People shouldn't have to choose between it and their real lives in order to experience it fully.

Pylgrim

Nooneelsesname wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

san-mpq wrote:

Now, we can throw out the elitist argument of "only the best and most dedicated should be getting the best rewards" which I agree with to an extent. But isn't the whole point of a game for everyone to play?

Answer: Everybody can play. But if you are asking whether everybody should play at the same level and get the same rewards regardless of effort, then the answer is a categorical No. There are several kind of games, but most games with a competitive edge to it (and MPQ has a huge one) create a meta where players that are more skilled/have more time to burn/have more money to get all perks/etc. are supposed to come ahead and get better rewards than those who doesn't. Tell me, if you with whatever little time you can put towards MPQ, believe that you should get all the rewards... what should the ones that can/are willing to put several hours per day into the game get? According to you, nothing else, or else you'll covet that too and demand to get it as well. This is not elitist talk, it merely is how any competitive activity work. You cannot demand the same trophy that is given to an athlete that has trained every singled day, several hours per day and rightfully beat you just because your "real life" didn't allow you time to train so intensively.

You still can play the game and have fun. You still can get some rewards. You'll just have a much slower progression than others that are able to play more intensively; and if you don't think that's fair, I don't know what to tell you. You may also consider about all the wonderful rewards that you are getting from spending time with your family and dogs and that many of the people who can play a game hardcore style are likely not getting.

Pylgrim wrote:

You call it "elitist" I call it "merit". A classical vocabulary difference between those who want things given away and those who earn them. The former cannot see how their wishes being granted would be ridiculously unfair to the latter and in fact, a complete discouragement from even trying.

Assassin's Creed is a one player person. MPQ is not the exception, all multiplayer games are like that. Or do you expect to jump in a game of Street Fighter, or Mario Kart, or LoL, or Magic the Gathering, or poker, or football or chess, or competitive pie-eating and be handed the victory and whatever attached rewards over your competitors (who have basically spend their life training to become good) just because someone feels bad that you simply are not able to put that much effort into it, but still want it really badly?

I disagree. The merit based model for distribution of luxury goods has some validity when those goods are physical and finite. That's not the case here. The limited supply of these rewards is completely artificial. And it's exacerbated by the fact that these rewards are the very tools you use to play the game. When you win a Hold-Em poker tournament, you don't get three hole cards in the next tournament you play. In chess, you don't get an extra queen. In pie-eating... um, I'm going to stop because that's kind of gross. The point is, I don't think that placing highly in one event should give you a great advantage in placing highly in the next one.

I don't know how D3 and Demiurge make their money. It definitely seems that they've identified roster slots as their revenue stream from people that don't buy token packs and well, they have to make money somehow. Maybe they feel it's highly necessary to keep the supply of covers limited. Maybe they feel that they need to have matches go longer and guarantee that people play on a set schedule. Maybe player hours leads to a lowered license fee, maybe they feel they need some measurable metric, I don't know.

But I know that we lost one the strongest members of our alliance family because he realized that he had to just sit next to his wife staring at his phone for two or three hours after putting their kids to bed if he wanted to experience the game's new content. He left the game, which I think is healthy. But I don't think it's healthy that the game demands that you put a part-time job's worth of time into it in order to fully play it.

Because this is a great game. It's challenging and interesting and fun. I downloaded Future Fight and it was incredibly mindless and boring. It literally has an autoplay button where you just watch your character blast through the level, and it feels like the same experience. It don't think this game needs all these Skinner box freemium tricks for people to play it. All these energy point/health pack/timer models are things you need to slap onto a bad game. This isn't one, you could take all that away and I think people would play the heck out of it.

What should the prize structure be? Easy to get: covers. Mediumish to get: HP. Super hard to get: vanity items. You want to grind your face off and win a 7 day PvE? Here's your Original Grey Suit Iron Man skin that doesn't add any functionality but goes over the Hulkbuster character so everyone that sees you in PvP knows you're amaaaaaazing. And do it with a ton of different characters. They switched Quicksilver's costume out quickly and seamlessly, make those kinds of things the reward. Don't make winning a hundred yard dash mean that you only have to run 90 next time.

And since you seem to think a player's "skill" adds credence to their argument, I've only finished out of the Top 2 once in 2015. Top 1 for Prof X and Kingpin. Currently Top 1 for IMHB. Plus the alliance stuff. Some people might mind other people getting the same rewards as them. I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't. We're playing a match 3 game, we're not "earning" anything. Let's all get to play.

This is a great game. People shouldn't have to choose between it and their real lives in order to experience it fully.

All very good points. Great job. the one thing I would argue is that the reward scheme (i.e. rewards are either useful or necessary to keep winning) is more suitably compared to Magic The Gathering's. But that's mostly true at the entry to medium levels. High tournament-class players all directly buy their tools rather than hoping to earn them. And the rewards they do get are sold to recoup that first investment, all things that are heavily discouraged in MPQ (and that's a good thing, I believe). For MPQ's model your suggestion may be an even better fit.

wymtime

Malcrof wrote:

MarvelMan wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

wymtime wrote:

#2 essentials being survival mode style. I like survival mode, but these really should have been for Ultron Prime. If the essentials were just the 3 goons it would still be hard, you could increase scaling and then have survival mode be

This would make Prime a little too easy i think, you would have time to stockpile AP and just 1 or 2 shot him, with no chance at retaliation on his part if you planned it right.

It would depend on how hard the minions with (or before) him would be. You could go multiple routes such as them being really hard so you would have to spend AP, or really easy so you couldnt gather much then have hard ones with him. I agree that fighting him was generally a let down vs the sentry survival nodes.

I think they made the prime nodes easy on purpose. You just spent 1/2 your waking hours defeating a round with 20 other people.. the big reward for the round shouldn't cause you too much pain and suffering.

quick edit: My alliance didn't get to finish round 6 on the first run because of server issues, and we did not get through round 5 on run 2, so i do not know how hard the higher prime's were.

My alliance killed all 8 rounds in Ultron 1 and 7 rounds in 2. I felt if you made the essential nodes just the 3 goons it would make it less grindy as it would not take close to an hour to do 6 clears of Ultron. It would make the Ultron portion easier and then the prime nodes harder since they would be survival style. The way it went I felt the essentials were a lot harder than the Prime. The green bots whom I named "Swarmy" was not my friend in the essentials. But in the Prime section since he did not come back to life he was not as bad. Oh Swarmy, how I don't miss you. My life is so much more relaxing now that you are gone.

Megdar

Pylgrim wrote:

all multiplayer games are like that.

No, not at all, in World of Warcraft, they have multiple layer of raiding. So everyone see all the content and have all the reward. But the elitist guild will have the reward at a higher gear level, or with a unique look or special achievement. But everyone get the progression.

They could have made the Ultron event easier, and reward at the same time HB is the EOTS. So less grindy player would have gained 3 covers. But elite grinder would have gained 6 cover (3 Ultron and 3 EoTS)

There is way to reward all the range of player.

Magic the gathering have format. Standard, the most played use only last two years of card, so "casual" player don't have a hard time being up to date in card. And the time you put in the game let you win tournement but it does not prevent you from gaining new card. And please don't compare a card game where 300$ give you a good deck for a year and MPQ where 300$ give you ONE 4* that can be obsolete in two months...

Megdar

Pylgrim wrote:

the reward scheme (i.e. rewards are either useful or necessary to keep winning) is more suitably compared to Magic The Gathering's.

Nope, it is not, you never need to win a tournement in MTG to have a better chance in the next one. Tournement in MTG always reward cash. Yes if you win often, you'll have to shell out less money out of your pocket. But most, if not all, tournement player buy their card directly, they never "randomly" pull them out of pack.

If MPQ let you trade your cover, it would be more like MTG. Except for the money to invest in the game, MTG and MPQ are pretty similar. You should never buy pack, you're better off to buy what you need directly. And the one with all the card/cover always have an edge over the other.

And the grind is not the same, most pro player will "grind" practice two - three weeks before the Pro Tour. Outside of that, they make it there job, they work for website and are paid to do movies and articles. I know of no one that is paid to play MPQ...