Thoughts of Frustration from The HP Suck Guy

Malcrof

Cayasha wrote:

I really dislike it when people say "if you don't like it then you oh should just quit". What if we want to stick around and try to make the game better? Did anyone say "if you don't like slavery you can just leave" and then expect everyone to just keep things the way they are without trying to improve things?
Sorry for the hyperbole and I'm not in any way suggesting that MMR changes are as bad as slavery so I hope it doesn't come off that way.

I don't think a Civil War is quite the answer here....

wait, what is the next Cap movie?

Unknown

I absolutely agree with the entirety of this post. This IS a game that is worth investing time and money in, to progress and to supportbthe gamemakers.

But, everything being done seems to be trying its best to dissuade any intelligent player from continuing. To buy a new slot now costs me 700hp. Buying 600 costs £4, so I need to buy the £15 pack. Seriously? Every two weeks, I need to spend 700, 800, 900... When does this stop?

And the real madness is, I would buy it if I felt like it got me somewhere. It doesn't though. At a roster of 54 it will take years to get them all, and with every new release comes an ever decreasing chance of doing that. I just opened 10 individual gold tokens and received nothing but 2* characters. And the odds were supposed to have improved? Nope. A lie, clearly.

Please make the game fun. It used to be when I first started (post XF buff), and I still feel cheated by the nerf. I spent money and time getting him to level 209 and he can't even be used in most of the PvE I like playing. Shocking.

THIS IS A GAME. GAMES ARE MEANT TO BE FUN. So please, please, make it fun.

Supercell went the same way for me. The frustration got to a threshold, I quit, uninstalled, and never went back to Clash. And I will never play a Supercell game again. Think on how unhappy you are making your customers, and change it.

Unknown

If you want to know where it stops (it doesn't), you can check the roster slot cost table in my compilation thread (see my sig). My last slot cost me 900 HP.

Khanwulf

mohio wrote:

In my eyes the problem is that every individual change adds up to a whole that is a longer match and more frustrating game experience.

<snip>

Weekly boosted characters - encourages roster diversity. The more leveled 3* you have the better off you will be. Makes sense, but these boosted guys have tons of health, so longer matches, you take more damage, use more health packs. Also to speak to game variety, this does provide a weekly variety, but each PvP during the week feels roughly the same. You see the same maxed guys over and over and over. How many people saw endless teams of cmags/blade this past PvP? And how many ran the same team cause they had it too? Is this actually fun?

<snip>

Have I missed other changes recently? Iso leveling change was nice but overdue. We had so many new useful characters and no way to level them to useful levels in a reasonable amount of time without some intense amount of LR grinding. Speaking of LR grinding the MMR changes have made those borderline unplayable for me. Rewards are nowhere near worth the effort and health pack usage needed. DDQ is awesome, kudos to devs. Ultron event was fun but kind of a disaster, it's been talked into the ground so no need to rehash here.

This is an astute and highly concise analysis. Well done--I think you've put your finger on a core to the problem: the changes add up to a much slower game. While DDQ makes it possible to get a decent amount of covers (1+) and ISO (5k) per day, the rest of the game has ground to a crawl.

Your point that the PVP in fact is less diverse because of the MMR changes and the weekly boosts defeating self-sorting of players by style is very interesting--and accurate. I ran through Smash Back and saw the same teams over and over from the beginning, with each match a brutal trench fight. At 8 hours left I was top 20 with a bit less than 400 points and physically exhausted. I had time to do more but my (wide) bench was trashed and no longer able to realistically handle level 150 OBW before she got blue or purple. Ended at 61, which is fine since green was the last Shulk cover needed.

Why does it need to be this way? MPQ was great when a match here or there advanced things meaningfully and a bench meant variety instead of "a larger collective health pool". I also used to do 4-5 matches before work, and now rarely can do one. What's the point?

A year and a half of play to arrive at a simulacrum of WW1 with supers? Really? PVE minions 80% of whom are tougher than LCap (my top, at 127)? That doesn't feel very Marvel-ous.

Because complaining doesn't help, here's a suggestion set to add to the mix of other excellent ones:
* Roll back health increases and benchmark powers accordingly. Decide how much time you expect people to put in to make 1000 points or first rank PVE, and work back from there. Keep in mind this is a phone game primarily played between things during the day.
* Weekly boost characters not for their levels (or not so much), but for their healing rates.
* If you need tough nodes with minions, use waves of lower levels, not immense scaling. If you need tough nodes, use heroes/villains. Think like a comic book. Heroic is fun. Grinding for the sake of grinding is not.
* "Re-doing" or reviewing old PVE boards is OK. Your game is a lot different now than it was when many of them were made, though I think few need dialog changes.
* If you want to run many boosted characters at once, then run several PVP matches at once. Let folks pick and choose which they want to commit the most energy to--or, if they have the capacity in time and bench, push multiple at once!

That's a few. I'm sure if this excellent community were engaged, we could come up with more fixes both quick and involved.

--Khanwulf

mohio

Khanwulf wrote:

<snip>

Because complaining doesn't help, here's a suggestion set to add to the mix of other excellent ones:
* Roll back health increases and benchmark powers accordingly. Decide how much time you expect people to put in to make 1000 points or first rank PVE, and work back from there. Keep in mind this is a phone game primarily played between things during the day.
* Weekly boost characters not for their levels (or not so much), but for their healing rates.
* If you need tough nodes with minions, use waves of lower levels, not immense scaling. If you need tough nodes, use heroes/villains. Think like a comic book. Heroic is fun. Grinding for the sake of grinding is not.
* "Re-doing" or reviewing old PVE boards is OK. Your game is a lot different now than it was when many of them were made, though I think few need dialog changes.
* If you want to run many boosted characters at once, then run several PVP matches at once. Let folks pick and choose which they want to commit the most energy to--or, if they have the capacity in time and bench, push multiple at once!

That's a few. I'm sure if this excellent community were engaged, we could come up with more fixes both quick and involved.

--Khanwulf

Not that I necessarily endorse all your suggestions, they are at least decent starting points for discussions. However, this last sentence you wrote is where I think so much of the frustration comes from.

"I'm sure if this excellent community were engaged, we could come up with more fixes both quick and involved."

Just reading that again makes me more frustrated! This community WAS very engaged and has come up with so many amazing suggestions for either new content or revamping old content to be more palatable to both veterans and new players alike. The OP himself was (in my eyes at least) one of the top posters here and had many great suggestions. Not to mention all the people we seem to have lost over the past 6+ months, Reckless, Nonce (welcome back?), Twysta (more often funny than serious, yet useful contributions nonetheless), HailMary, NP, Clintman, loahpeh, bonfire, bowgentle, and many others (apologies for not including all your names, you have all been appreciated and missed, I assure you). Some of these even still play or post occasionally, but all their great ideas and suggestions have been almost completely ignored over time so why should they continue to post them? We all love(d?) this game and have come up with countless ideas for improving it but have been largely ignored all along the way. Not only that but the devs don't even bother acknowledging many of the concerns/issues the forum user base has with the game. This is where a huge amount of frustrations stem from.

reckless442

daibar wrote:

Before 4Thor was nerfed, it was conceivable that both X-Force and 4Thor were just good top tier 4*. Even though people called for XForce nerfs, he wasn't undefeatable, he wasn't required for shield hops (though having him certainly helped), and he wasn't Sentry-level meta breaking. It really depended on where Demiurge decided the game should go. However, after more 4* came out including the fairly strong Prof X, and no one ditched the XThor combo, avoiding nerfs became less and less likely. The hopeful thought, "They made us work 3 full seasons and countless PVPs to get these Thor covers, they wouldn't just nerf her right?" We were wrong.

Once 4Thor was overnerfed, everyone pretty much knew the XForce nerf was coming. Will even mentioned it in the Thor nerf video, XForce is much above the power-curve.

Balance would be where every character is usable at least in some situations, where one character (at the same rarity level) is better than the other under some conditions, but worse under others. Balance is 'a' key to making a game good, otherwise the game stagnates with people using the same 2-3 characters every round. Balance makes it so the 'mountain' is neither too low, nor too high, and pushing someone off the top has both risk and reward. I don't believe that Balance means over-nerfing the old hotness to make way for the new hotness, using 'balance' as a justification. We all know that's not balance.

Metaphorically, I'd say in PVP they stuck us in a jagged valley to start, as opposed to a gentle slope that's easy to climb up. Purposefully losing 3-6 matches to start every PVP isn't fun.

I agree with you that X-Force wasn't Sentry-level, but I think you are overlooking something important. They nerfed 4thor and X-Force just after releasing Prof X, who has great synergy with Iron Fist, Cyclops, GSBW, and others, and before they released Kingpin and Hulkbuster, two characters with high damage/high health potential. They also did that nerf before switching to the weekly buffed characters. So we have no idea if people would have continued to use SexGoddess or not. Not many people really had time to finish Prof X before those nerfs, so we can never know if he would have provided combos as options for players who did not want to rely on SexGoddess. Now people are demand aing nerf of Prof X, but he would not seem over-powered if X-Force and 4Thor were still where they were. Nor would Hulkbuster.

That seems to me a major problem. Instead of waiting to see if other combinations rise up to compete with the popular ones, the devs nerf the popular ones. Then we cumulatively turn to new characters, find combos that work, they become popular, and then they get nerfed too. The power of Sentry/Hood, for instance, could have been greatly minimized with the boost nerf and a slight increase of the cost of world rupture. If you needed to make two green matches, two yellow, and two black before you could do the sacrifice/world rupture/intimidation combo, it would not have been as strong -- especially if 4Thor could stun Sentry in three or four turns. (They also could have changed Sentry's strongest color to green or yellow so X-Force could steal it with surgical strike.)

metallicajake01

I just hit my Devil Dinosaur covers a few days ago, have 6 or so maxed 3* (LThor,Patches,Daken,BP, Hood,Hulk), XF and IW @ 8 covers. Poking around on the new forums for the first time and thought I'd see what's going on in GD.

Haven't played an event in a long time, atleast a month. I'm up to 11 health packs. In some nothing alliance just for the fringe benefits. I try to play DDQ in the br but that's it.

Played the 3-13th season as best I could every event but with all the changes and the mounting time, timing, and just pure frustration that everything has generated its not worth it. Got to the point where the game felt like a chore and I just couldn't do it.

They turned PVP into PVE. I can't agree more with the stuff in the OP.

All they're doing is firefighting and aren't taking the time to consider their meta. Its pissing people off, and from reading this thread sounds like its taking its toll on the community.

I don't know what they really do at this point but just wanted to make sure people understand these folks aren't alone in their sentiments and put in my 2 cents which yes, I realize is pretty half-assed at this point.

I put good money into this over the year because it was damn fun and the only game I had been playing but I won't give it money or my real attention until its turned around enough to get my interest back. Until then DDQ will be it. It's good that lower people have a way to grow their roster but the pain that is the events nowadays doesn't provide the advantage it used to which made it exciting. They just replaced one major problem with another. The last events I did play left me feeling my roster is worthless and I was powerless to do better than I did.

daveomite

theapropos wrote:

okay dave. i know you think im just trying to be nasty, but this is what posted.

[*]All of it is classic bait and switch. I know others on this very forum have said pretty much the same thing. "Hey, you really want this! It will be so awesome!" - so, you buy into it and collect it all, so happy with your accomplishment, then they tell you that you can't have it anymore but "Oh, we have something new you can have now!" - again, meaning you have to collect everything up again and buy into it to. That chain of events will never stop here, they've made that abundantly clear. [*]

Can you seriously tell me when for example, the kingpin sw thing now was shown, people actually bought covers? Thats not switch and bait, thats just too good to be true. Its not just mpq that has this problem. Many games do. What we do advise others is, dont put anything into both of them until the dust settles. None of us will say, hey its op, go for it. So its not switch and bait. Only the very gullible will fall for it. What you are trying to say is essentially that the game is trying to cheat you. And intentionally or not, that colored the entire discussion.

First of all - no, I don't think you are trying to be nasty. Understand, I posted this about my own experiences, not yours. Just as you have every right to play without spending money - so do the people who play and spend money. I'm not officially on either camp, but I don't really care either way. I have spent some, but played hard for most. Does that make me a bad guy? I don't think so.

As for the "bait/switch" topic - yes, many players feel that way. It's the general perception. The fact is, if anyone thinks they get top scores or top placement consistently without the top characters in the game right now, I beg to differ - unless said players are in much softer brackets, etc. So, for those players in some of the top alliances, many of which have minimums to maintain - it gets harder and harder the higher you get to try to maintain scores unless either you have a good enough defense to get some wins, or look scary enough that you are avoided more. All just part of the game and why so many try to level said characters as soon as they can.

Given that - how is it not bait and switch when they announce that a character is coming out - everyone sees it's powers - please clamor into PvE or PvP brackets to fight hard to win covers - then they dump saved ISO into said characters to level them up. They got them, feel like they accomplished something and achieved something. Then maybe a week or a month or two later - the character is completely changed to the point of being next to irrelevant to use.

Seriously... can you tell me of anytime you would ever go in to buy the exact thing that you want.... let's say it happens to be the only 5 bedroom house with a moderate backyard in a neighborhood of only 3 bedroom houses with no backyard. You work hard, earn the money, and buy the house. Everything seems great, all get moved in and settled. Then, you're sitting there watching tv one day, you hear the doorbell ring and it's some guy with paperwork, handing it to you, telling you that the other people in the neighborhood are unhappy that your house is so different from theirs. Due to that, and to keep things fair and balanced, they are going to have to remove two of your bedrooms and your backyard. In that example, anyone else in that neighborhood could have chosen to buy that 5 bedroom house like you did... but they didn't want to. Then, you come in and buy it - then they complain - then your house loses complete value in the process. Would that be fair?

theapropos wrote:

I also think vets should have less frustrations not more. We have most covers. Most pvps we are trying to push up points for alliances , not for ourselves. Cant speak for yours but mine doesnt do pve. To try for both will be crazy. People will burn out. So we only go for it when its something we want

But do you agree on the positive parts? ISO has never been easier. Anyone thinks DDQ is no good? 3* drawrate is certainly up. We certainly had no help in those day. Can you just say what you think has been good for the game? That balances out the discussion somewhat

I do agree there are some positives to the game. Yes - Deadpool Daily is a nice add. But, some people wound up in a type of rut... never able to catch up and maintain enough ISO to help them further develop their rosters fast enough to help them. For those people, DP Daily is more like a drop in a very large bucket than any real help. But, it's a really positive thing for those with a larger percentage of their rosters maxed/near maxed than those with a larger percentage at most characters in the 80-120 range.

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Lemme just play DA for a bit here..

daveomite wrote:

Shield Cooldowns that really weren't needed in the first place

Even boosts got nerfed "because people thought it was cheating"... against who? The AI?

I don't really see a problem with any of this.

Starting with 6AP in 2-4 different colors is simply broken. There's just no denying it. It completely warps the balance of the game, giving players on offense an incredibly huge advantage. That's one match-4 away from a 4k nuke if you're running Hulkbuster, or the very real potential for a turn-one Surgical Strike or ROTP with Iron Fist's insane pink. Boosts are supposed to be for the occasional hard fight, not a tool to make matches against similarly-leveled opponents completely painless. It doesn't matter that it's the AI on the receiving end, it screws with the balance of powers in a way that simply isn't healthy.
Shield cooldowns unnecessary? Are you kidding? I know you've been around long enough to remember the Sentry/Hood meta. Shieldhopping was broken. The new system still allows for really high scores and getting all the rewards (one of the guys from Agent Archer put up a private guide on how to hit 1k without spending hero points while I was in there), but does not encourage shieldhopping. This seems considerably less broken. These changes made PvP better.

Yes, I have been "around long enough to remember".

Sentry needed a counter more than a nerf. Was it really that hard to get covers for Sentry? I did via Pve and Pvp. I chose to play hard to get him because I saw that he would be one of the stronger characters at that time. So what?

So what if anyone chooses to boost into a match with the AI? How many times did someone max boost into a match and STILL lost because the AI may as well be max boosted given how many match 5's fall from the heavens for it consistently. Fine - everyone's piping up about balance - then fine - balance the damn AI.

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

The nerfs are like clockwork now. cMags and Patch were a big team back in the day - nerfed, and Sentry released. Sentry and Hood become a force in PvP... Sentry gets nerfed and Hood changed... but, xForce "buffed". Major rush by people to either get covers or to finally dump ISO into what was known as a poorly built character - because now he was going to be king. Then, 4Thor released - instantly people spotted that 4Thor/XF would be a dominate team. What happens? Both nerfed. Prof X was nerfed before release even. IF nerfed after release. Now, characters like Kingpin and Hulkbuster - how long do you really think it will be until they get smacked down by the nerf hammer? And yes... I know, I know... it's all done for "balance". The smart play though would have been to ensure things were balanced from inception.

C'mon, you can't criticize them for nerfing a character before the character even comes out. That's the responsible thing to do - to look at a character and say, "Hey, hang on, this is not okay, we need to fix this". Similarly, Sentry/Hood needed a nerf, and it got a nerf, and it really wasn't that long after they figured out, "Hey, this is broken". Remember, the first player ranking Sentry was in, he placed 11th. We didn't figure out sentry bombing for a while, and by the time every team was sentry/hood, the nerf had been announced and was in the pipeline. It took longer than it should have, and that one should have been something to show up during preliminary testing, but this also had the important detail that you couldn't really fix it without destroying it. You couldn't buff everyone up to Sentry levels - Sentry needed a nerf, there was no way around it.

Is there really any justification that you feel to be a jerk to me about whatever you don't agree with? Was I rude or condescending to you, your friends, or hell - even my old team - who you know play with? No.

Again - a counter, such as Void - would have solved a great deal of the Sentry problem. But, it's irrelevant now as it's all in the past and no longer matters. My post wasn't about Sentry was it? So why even talk so much about it? I'm not talking about just nerfs, or just shields, or just this or that. Look at the big picture, not the small on you keep harping on. What is now affecting the top end of the player base and causing many to leave is the exact same thing that will affect the other player bases once they get to this stage. Does that not make sense?

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

XForce, though? Oh boy. They tinykitty up. They tinykitty up big time. XForce was above the curve. Way above the curve. But he wasn't broken in the same way Sentry was. He wasn't the same level of meta-defining. The difference, if you will, between Super Street Fighter Turbo Akuma and Brawl Metaknight. They could have buffed people. They could have said, "We're going to give him a few little tweaks and buff the rest of the cast to be in line. And they probably could have seen how ridiculous he was at inception. Hell, the day the buff hit, people were already replacing Sentry with XForce in their lineups. But no, they waited months, about the time you'd need to build an XForce from the ground up, then dropped the nerf hammer on him way harder than was necessary. A huge tinykitty you to everyone who put in time or money building the character, and on a personal note, for someone who finished him days before the nerf was announced, a real kick in the ****. This cannot happen. This kind of bait and switch is not okay.

This is exactly what I mean. I have no disdain for you or anyone else over things that are going on. I'm talking about issues just like you just mentioned. You worked hard and fought to get those covers for XF - just like several friends of mine did. They just managed to level XF days before he was completely nerfed. Yes, XF is still useful in some cases, his black still powerful - but his effectiveness is now much more situational than it ever was before. This is the type of problem that I think is a very big one - as those players, possibly even you, devoted a great deal of time and resources to one character, then he's basically torn apart. Sure, you can sell him - but not even get your full resources back from him.

peanut_gallery wrote:

Perfect post Daveomite. And very timely. My whole alliance (TheEnlightened) practically imploaded on Monday since a bunch of us were going to retire all at once and/or go super casual given the mounting frustration with the game. We realized we all liked the community of the alliance, and it was decided that we'd just be a super casual alliance. No pressure or goals for anyone to compete in any event. Just play for whatever you want or don't play at all if you need to take a break. No one gets booted or subbed out for a Merc. If you want to Merc yourself out for an event you really want, that's totally cool.

Basically D3 has squashed any desire to compete in any remotely meaningful way, so we're just hanging out super casual. I'm not too sure that was their intention with all their changes.

Agreed Peanut, and thank you. The purpose of my post wasn't to inflame forum wars between the F2P and P2P audiences, but to hopefully bring to light the many frustrations that now exist in the game itself for many of us.

daveomite

mohio wrote:

Hi daveomite! I've noticed your relative absence on the forums and I'd say at least personally your presence has been missed. I can't say I blame you as I've been kind of the same lately and a lot of these same frustrations have been building up inside of me too. It'll be at least the second (but probably even more than that) time I reply to one of your posts saying simply I agree with what you wrote and feel I could have written the same post myself. Thank you for caring enough to take the time to write it. I fear I've grown too cynical about the game and devs so I just keep this tinykitty to myself knowing it won't change. Yet still I hope it does.

Hey mohio! Great seeing you on here. And yes, other that posting the HP Sucks stuff, I'm rarely on the forums anymore as of late. I still lurk and see what's going on, just haven't posted as much.

Trust me.... lol... I can understand the cynical part you speak of. Though I mainly talked of my own perceptions of the game and the frustrations surrounding it, I meant it for all of the players out there finding the same types of issues as I do. I do seriously doubt it would amount to much overall, but just felt I had to finally voice my thoughts on everything. Thanks for the comments, and always glad to talk to friends on here.

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

Ironically, you have made the OP's point about nerfs even stronger. If you could see the character was going to be nerfed from miles away, should that not mean that the developers should not see this when these characters are released as well? You blame players for going after these characters, but players can only go after the characters the developers have decreed to be balanced to begin with.

You say CS would more than happy to assist OP. However, he stated that he has contacted them several times.

Personally, I like a lot of the changes in theory. The problem is the game is not improving for a lot of players. A lot of people want to spend less time playing, not more.

People talk about balance like it is this great and wondrous panacea. What they really mean is distributive justice. They want the newer players to be given lots of help with the veteran players continually given new obstacles in their way. A player who does not play as much or well or sinks resources into the game wants to be at the same level as those players you have played for over a year, play many more hours during the week, sunk money into the game, have developed strategies with various character compositions.

This "balance" actually results into two different but serious problems. (1) If veterans are playing to improve their roster and get rewarded for their time, money, and efforts, but the rug keeps getting pulled under them at every turn with greater frequency, eventually, even the most stubborn one will move on. (2) If other players continue to get great benefits from the status quo, why would they ever spend more resources, time, or effort? Eventually, the game will result in mediocrity and huge loss of revenue.

The truth is balance is not the key to making a game great. A game is great when there is a top of the mountain to get to, a challenge to stay there, and other people aspire to climb that mountain and are given the means to do so in a reasonable timeframe. A lot of changes like DPDQ, lowering iso leveling requirements, and lowering and changing of Progressives was making strides to that last part.

However, instead of sticking to the vision they have been implementing for so long, instead of letting people try climbing the mountain after these new tools were implemented, they decided to destroy the mountain, and in the process, destroy many of the fun elements of the game that made players feel like they were accomplishing anything.

Well said... thank you. These are the types of things I'm really trying to express. Not that I'm sitting here complaining that my character got nerfed - it's not really about that. I think the fact that I produce the HP Sucks, even one for the XF nerf should show - that I try to find the humor in whatever situation is going on, not sit there and completely piss and moan about it every day. Hence, I'm not here on the forum every day giving everyone negative points for comments or posts that I don't agree with. I don't have to agree with everything, and enjoy seeing everyone's views. The problems are much larger than any one player or character nerf, that's the bigger issue here.

Heartburn wrote:

as for shield cooldowns, shielding is the only realistic way to get the 4* award, unless you have one of the previous op characters combos to walk there in one bloody march. but i think your missing the fact that isn't that what you do in grindy games you find the combo that gets you the sought after reward so that you can consistently get it minimizing the cost to the player. the 4* reward is how you are suppose to get your 4* covers. they are taking every tool we make to try to get it and remove it or break it so we can't transition correctly. instead of costing 75 hp to shield each time it now cost more HP as you need to use the higher hp costing shields and more time why the 3hour shield doesn't have a 3 Hr cool down melts my brain.

This. Heartburn... thanks for the comments, many great points. Just wanted to bring this one out in particular.

MarCr wrote:

theapropos wrote:

I said many not most or nearly all. But why are you still here? There's no half in or half out. You can't say, oh they're tinykitty. And then continue to play. That just doesn't make sense.

You can still enjoy the game but not like the direction it is going. Life isn't a series of binary choices.

Indeed. Thanks.

mohio wrote:

In my eyes the problem is that every individual change adds up to a whole that is a longer match and more frustrating game experience.

Exactly the issue. Exactly.

theapropos wrote:

But it shouldn't be spent in hypocrisy either. There are people who have quit, and they gave a long and lengthy explanation. I might not agree with all they are saying. But they are taking a stand on principle. And I respect that. This isn't work. You don't have to put up with things you dislike. Even the rage quitters had a line in the sand

Why are you so displeased with whatever is going on? I'm just trying to understand is all. Did I say something? Or anyone else? None of my posting was directed at you or players like you, etc. I never said I was going to quit. Yet you keep focusing on small points of my point or other people's comments, but not the entire meaning of everything.

mohio wrote:

Just reading that again makes me more frustrated! This community WAS very engaged and has come up with so many amazing suggestions for either new content or revamping old content to be more palatable to both veterans and new players alike. The OP himself was (in my eyes at least) one of the top posters here and had many great suggestions. Not to mention all the people we seem to have lost over the past 6+ months, Reckless, Nonce (welcome back?), Twysta (more often funny than serious, yet useful contributions nonetheless), HailMary, NP, Clintman, loahpeh, bonfire, bowgentle, and many others (apologies for not including all your names, you have all been appreciated and missed, I assure you). Some of these even still play or post occasionally, but all their great ideas and suggestions have been almost completely ignored over time so why should they continue to post them? We all love(d?) this game and have come up with countless ideas for improving it but have been largely ignored all along the way. Not only that but the devs don't even bother acknowledging many of the concerns/issues the forum user base has with the game. This is where a huge amount of frustrations stem from.

Mohio... I think it's safe to say many of us are still here. And thank you for thinking I was some great poster, lol... I'm not sure that I really made any difference on here. Yes, I do think many, great commentators and active, involved people on the forum have been lost over time, but there are still many on here from time to time. I choose to look at it like all hope is not lost, still have some hope that eventually, things would change for the better. But that is because I still find some joy in the game or the people involved, like friends, teammates, etc. But yes, the frustrations have mounted up to points that I sometimes question why I continue, then I remember my teammates need me, and I go back to work, lol.

reckless442 wrote:

I agree with you that X-Force wasn't Sentry-level, but I think you are overlooking something important. They nerfed 4thor and X-Force just after releasing Prof X, who has great synergy with Iron Fist, Cyclops, GSBW, and others, and before they released Kingpin and Hulkbuster, two characters with high damage/high health potential. They also did that nerf before switching to the weekly buffed characters. So we have no idea if people would have continued to use SexGoddess or not. Not many people really had time to finish Prof X before those nerfs, so we can never know if he would have provided combos as options for players who did not want to rely on SexGoddess. Now people are demand aing nerf of Prof X, but he would not seem over-powered if X-Force and 4Thor were still where they were. Nor would Hulkbuster.

That seems to me a major problem. Instead of waiting to see if other combinations rise up to compete with the popular ones, the devs nerf the popular ones. Then we cumulatively turn to new characters, find combos that work, they become popular, and then they get nerfed too. The power of Sentry/Hood, for instance, could have been greatly minimized with the boost nerf and a slight increase of the cost of world rupture. If you needed to make two green matches, two yellow, and two black before you could do the sacrifice/world rupture/intimidation combo, it would not have been as strong -- especially if 4Thor could stun Sentry in three or four turns. (They also could have changed Sentry's strongest color to green or yellow so X-Force could steal it with surgical strike.)

100% this... absolutely what I think is a critical issue, or confusing aspect of the game. Yes, some characters may be considered OP - but that is because they may not have rivals or counters to them. Many of the new characters that are coming out could have made other characters less used in favor of the new. Would have helped increase diversification instead of reigning it in even more.

Khanwulf

mohio wrote:

Khanwulf wrote:

That's a few. I'm sure if this excellent community were engaged, we could come up with more fixes both quick and involved.

--Khanwulf

Not that I necessarily endorse all your suggestions, they are at least decent starting points for discussions. However, this last sentence you wrote is where I think so much of the frustration comes from.

"I'm sure if this excellent community were engaged, we could come up with more fixes both quick and involved."

Just reading that again makes me more frustrated! This community WAS very engaged and has come up with so many amazing suggestions for either new content or revamping old content to be more palatable to both veterans and new players alike. The OP himself was (in my eyes at least) one of the top posters here and had many great suggestions. Not to mention all the people we seem to have lost over the past 6+ months, Reckless, Nonce (welcome back?), Twysta (more often funny than serious, yet useful contributions nonetheless), HailMary, NP, Clintman, loahpeh, bonfire, bowgentle, and many others (apologies for not including all your names, you have all been appreciated and missed, I assure you). Some of these even still play or post occasionally, but all their great ideas and suggestions have been almost completely ignored over time so why should they continue to post them? We all love(d?) this game and have come up with countless ideas for improving it but have been largely ignored all along the way. Not only that but the devs don't even bother acknowledging many of the concerns/issues the forum user base has with the game. This is where a huge amount of frustrations stem from.

Mmm? Actually I think you misunderstand my comment: it was intended to be taken as "engaged [by the developers]". The community is obviously engaged--there are a flood of very thoughtful ideas and analysis. Far better than mine in fact.

My point is that while we're all very concerned, and we want MPQ to be the best it can be for everyone, we're talking in an empty room right now. Apologies for my words serving to distract from that point.

We wouldn't be bothering to post on forums if we didn't really enjoy match-3, puzzle quest gameplay, and Marvel. It's a powerful combination.

--Khanwulf

Unknown

It's kinda weird, as I know the dev's can't respond to every single post etc, but we have soooooo many different threads asking about pretty much every point you made, that I wonder why they can't just respond in here and wipe out 90% of the uncertainty surrounding the game and what they are playing at. Assuming they have answers of course.

Anyway, good post. I'm a bit like you as have played for quite some time now and been through a few Alliances and all your points have come up time and time again with pretty much all of them. I agree with most of it and can't really fault the viewpoints you have on any of the issues. I still like the game but there is no doubt it could be so much more with just a bit more of a thought process.

Stax the Foyer

reckless442 wrote:

I agree with you that X-Force wasn't Sentry-level, but I think you are overlooking something important. They nerfed 4thor and X-Force just after releasing Prof X, who has great synergy with Iron Fist, Cyclops, GSBW, and others, and before they released Kingpin and Hulkbuster, two characters with high damage/high health potential. They also did that nerf before switching to the weekly buffed characters. So we have no idea if people would have continued to use SexGoddess or not. Not many people really had time to finish Prof X before those nerfs, so we can never know if he would have provided combos as options for players who did not want to rely on SexGoddess. Now people are demand aing nerf of Prof X, but he would not seem over-powered if X-Force and 4Thor were still where they were. Nor would Hulkbuster.

That seems to me a major problem. Instead of waiting to see if other combinations rise up to compete with the popular ones, the devs nerf the popular ones. Then we cumulatively turn to new characters, find combos that work, they become popular, and then they get nerfed too. The power of Sentry/Hood, for instance, could have been greatly minimized with the boost nerf and a slight increase of the cost of world rupture. If you needed to make two green matches, two yellow, and two black before you could do the sacrifice/world rupture/intimidation combo, it would not have been as strong -- especially if 4Thor could stun Sentry in three or four turns. (They also could have changed Sentry's strongest color to green or yellow so X-Force could steal it with surgical strike.)

Yes, the nerfs seem to have been made because of the old status quo, but were immediately followed by massive changes to the game with the health increases and the weekly buffed characters.

elvy75

Lots of good points here. While i am not considering to stop playing this game yet, my level of enjoyment has significantly went down. Up to recent changes in MMR/health buff+buffed characters i was hitting easy 1k in pvp. My MMR were as follows, non maxed 3* after seed teams, maxed 3* from 500 and maxed 4* from 700 points, and that was fine. After the changes is maxed 3* and 4* teams from match 1. I managed to have seed teams once, when i preregistered, but i usually dont do it. But this would't be big problem if each match lasts for 5+ minutes, which is too long for a phone game. Time needed to reach the same scores as before has doubled. With work + family this game doesnt need to be additional job, but a stress release. Now i go for 1K only occasionally, if i really have free time and motivation. I speak of motivation because its gone due to the same changes. Devs said that 4* should just be slightly more powerful than 3*, yet the costs to buy their covers and level them up are double. I am not motivated to invest HP or ISO do level up characters that are by design intended to be just a bit better than 3*. The entire desire to progress, what drove me to finish my 3* transition, is gone now that i should get into full 4* transition, why bother when boosted fully maxed 3* is equal or in many cases better than 4*?

simonsez

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Yes, the nerfs seem to have been made because of the old status quo, but were immediately followed by massive changes to the game with the health increases and the weekly buffed characters.

It was an intentional reset button. If Xor was still what it was, no one would be rushing to build a hulkbuster, and nobody would be rushing to level up the buffs-of-the-week. You could easily be ignoring those changes, and continue to kick **** with Xor. That kind of a status quo doesn't generate any revenue.

Unknown

I don't have anything to add. Just wanted to say that I completely agree with you Dave!! I'm on day 409 (If I hadn't taken a handful MPQ vacations, I would be much higher on my day count, I've been around since almost the beginning.) and we are still seeing the same cycle of issues over and over. But I love the community here, even tho I mostly just lurk now and read. I rarely post anymore. I also love Alliance. Both the Stare and the Cave. That is what keeps me coming back every day. Although DDQ has also played a part in keeping me coming back every day as well.

BTW, you are greened at 86 as of this post! So your post has hit a lot of issues right on the head and the Devs need to pay attention!

Unknown

Thanks Dave.

Following their EULA, I opened a dispute with them. The EULA state that the dispute should be taken care of within 60 days.

Ever since I opened this dispute, I received a canned answer that my claim had been escalated, and no reply.

It's more than 2 months...

puppychow

theapropos wrote:

3* drawrate is certainly up. We certainly had no help in those day. Can you just say what you think has been good for the game? That balances out the discussion somewhat

Hi! I appreciate your contribution to the discussion, but I just want to point out that when I started playing MPQ last April, D3 was offering 10% draw rates for featured characters in special event cover packs, such as patch for example. Nowadays, the draw rate for a featured 3* is under 3%. So the rate is still quite low, and I don't think a low draw rate for a featured character is good for the game when players missing these characters cannot fully participate in pve events. There is absolutely no reason for the publisher to set the rate so low, except to convince players missing these covers to buy 42 cover packs. In other words, it's a revenue driven decision by the publisher to set the draw rate this low, rather than for the good of the game.

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

theapropos wrote:

3* drawrate is certainly up. We certainly had no help in those day. Can you just say what you think has been good for the game? That balances out the discussion somewhat

Hi! I appreciate your contribution to the discussion, but I just want to point out that when I started playing MPQ last April, D3 was offering 10% draw rates for featured characters in special event cover packs, such as patch for example. Nowadays, the draw rate for a featured 3* is under 3%. So the rate is still quite low, and I don't think a low draw rate for a featured character is good for the game when players missing these characters cannot fully participate in pve events. There is absolutely no reason for the publisher to set the rate so low, except to convince players missing these covers to buy 42 cover packs. In other words, it's a revenue driven decision by the publisher to set the draw rate this low, rather than for the good of the game.

And before that, event 10-packs actually had a 100% draw rate for featured characters. But then the devs decided that becoming a degenerate casino would be more "fun"

daveomite

hermanbloom wrote:

It's kinda weird, as I know the dev's can't respond to every single post etc, but we have soooooo many different threads asking about pretty much every point you made, that I wonder why they can't just respond in here and wipe out 90% of the uncertainty surrounding the game and what they are playing at. Assuming they have answers of course.

Anyway, good post. I'm a bit like you as have played for quite some time now and been through a few Alliances and all your points have come up time and time again with pretty much all of them. I agree with most of it and can't really fault the viewpoints you have on any of the issues. I still like the game but there is no doubt it could be so much more with just a bit more of a thought process.

Agreed. I know they can't answer every post or comment, just not enough time. But it would be nice for, at least, an occasional post or response to things like this. I know there are many others out there with similar thoughts and frustrations that I mentioned - and many, many more threads where things may have been mentioned. But, at the same time, I'm trying to keep things as civil as possible too as I don't think this thread turning into a flame war would help any at all.

I do still like the game too Herman.... I can understand. It's sort of a hard place to be with it.

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Yes, the nerfs seem to have been made because of the old status quo, but were immediately followed by massive changes to the game with the health increases and the weekly buffed characters.

Exactly.... to me, it just seems like complete overkill.

elvy75 wrote:

Lots of good points here. While i am not considering to stop playing this game yet, my level of enjoyment has significantly went down. Up to recent changes in MMR/health buff+buffed characters i was hitting easy 1k in pvp. My MMR were as follows, non maxed 3* after seed teams, maxed 3* from 500 and maxed 4* from 700 points, and that was fine. After the changes is maxed 3* and 4* teams from match 1. I managed to have seed teams once, when i preregistered, but i usually dont do it. But this would't be big problem if each match lasts for 5+ minutes, which is too long for a phone game. Time needed to reach the same scores as before has doubled. With work + family this game doesnt need to be additional job, but a stress release. Now i go for 1K only occasionally, if i really have free time and motivation. I speak of motivation because its gone due to the same changes. Devs said that 4* should just be slightly more powerful than 3*, yet the costs to buy their covers and level them up are double. I am not motivated to invest HP or ISO do level up characters that are by design intended to be just a bit better than 3*. The entire desire to progress, what drove me to finish my 3* transition, is gone now that i should get into full 4* transition, why bother when boosted fully maxed 3* is equal or in many cases better than 4*?

Elvy - thanks for the comment. Totally agree that I still play the game, but my enjoyment level has gone down tremendously. My MMR was similar to yours during a climb, and I face maxed teams at the start. Usually a maxed featured with either 2 4*'s or combination of 3/4*s, etc.

That time involved point you mention is a very big issue with me too. Time to climb has dramatically increased , more shields wind up used, not to mention, times of concurrent events all happening at the same time. It's a major time requirement if you choose to perform decent in most things to get rewards.

johnaaron33 wrote:

I don't have anything to add. Just wanted to say that I completely agree with you Dave!! I'm on day 409 (If I hadn't taken a handful MPQ vacations, I would be much higher on my day count, I've been around since almost the beginning.) and we are still seeing the same cycle of issues over and over. But I love the community here, even tho I mostly just lurk now and read. I rarely post anymore. I also love Alliance. Both the Stare and the Cave. That is what keeps me coming back every day. Although DDQ has also played a part in keeping me coming back every day as well.

BTW, you are greened at 86 as of this post! So your post has hit a lot of issues right on the head and the Devs need to pay attention!

John - great to see you on here again. Been awhile. Thanks for posting your thoughts too.

arktos1971 wrote:

Thanks Dave.

Following their EULA, I opened a dispute with them. The EULA state that the dispute should be taken care of within 60 days.

Ever since I opened this dispute, I received a canned answer that my claim had been escalated, and no reply.

It's more than 2 months...

Best of luck with that. It's sad things such as that cannot be resolved faster.

puppychow wrote:

...when I started playing MPQ last April, D3 was offering 10% draw rates for featured characters in special event cover packs, such as patch for example. Nowadays, the draw rate for a featured 3* is under 3%. So the rate is still quite low, and I don't think a low draw rate for a featured character is good for the game when players missing these characters cannot fully participate in pve events. There is absolutely no reason for the publisher to set the rate so low, except to convince players missing these covers to buy 42 cover packs. In other words, it's a revenue driven decision by the publisher to set the draw rate this low, rather than for the good of the game.

gobstopper wrote:

And before that, event 10-packs actually had a 100% draw rate for featured characters. But then the devs decided that becoming a degenerate casino would be more "fun"

These two points... exactly. All part of the bigger, overall changes. It's not just about shields, or boosts, or shards, or brackets, or events... it's about things like the draw rates, and players ability to not only keep up, but to actually play in events if they couldn't get rewards in a previous event due to being in a "death shard", etc.

Also... note to all... thanks much for the responses, thoughts and the unexpected amount of thumbs up. I appreciate it greatly.

Unknown

Hey Mods! I think this post deserves a sticky. Almost 100 people in such a short time can't be wrong.