Note to devs: keys to lasting success

Unknown

You're overthinking this guys. The answers are there, right in front of you. Give people what they want, not what you think they need, and you will have a game on your hands that lasts a long time for a lot of people. This simple philosophy is the key to success in many areas of life. The first step is to find out what people want by listening. I know you guys have some people here, at least one, who do a great job at doing that on these forums. The second step is, once you know what people want, to give it to them. Personally what keeps me coming back is progression, feeling like I've gained something, and discovery of new cards and combos.

You've said yourselves the game is designed to have players hit a brick wall at a certain point. Do you think about what this statement feels like to players? Why would you EVER want people to be frustrated annoyed or angry about their experience with your simple match 3 game? People should feel like they have accomplished something, made progress, gotten better, stronger, and faster EVERY TIME THEY LOG IN TO YOUR GAME. Look at the success of WoW. They have followed this simple philosophy to great success by giving their players what they want. You can play that game for fifteen minutes and feel like you've advanced your character and become better at the game as a result. Give us that feeling with MPQ and we will keep coming back forever.

Since I've been playing you've added Hulk, Punisher, Patch, and Daredevil. Honestly, while good, with the whole Marvel Universe at your fingers, this is not enough. More cards. Why does it take freaking forever to max out the two stars? It takes WAY TOO LONG to level your characters on all star levels. Why are there only two four star characters? And why are they so terrible that nobody even cares about using them? Why do your characters only go up to four stars anyway? Where are the five stars?

You've been focusing on the wrong stuff because you feel you need to artificially put roadblocks into people's paths to keep us playing. You don't know better than us what we want from this game. Listen learn and provide. Don't let me down.

Zifna

I have to agree with this; I really feel it shows a lack of confidence in their product.

They have here the golden grail - a legitimately good, fun, game that could be popular with a WIDE swath of people. But if they persist in following standard cell-phone-game pay-to-win tactics, they're going to sharply limit their audience and end up making less money overall.

Oh, I know it's tempting to do the easy thing and cater to the "whales" who spend hundreds or thousands a month on your game. But I wish they'd be brave enough not to, and instead pursue the success LoL has had. At this point they're likely always going to have a bit of pay-to-win elements, but it saddens me when I see them adding more of that rather than less.

TheVulture

Could. Not. Agree. More. OP.

That certainly would be a dream to play.

Unknown

Agree with OP.

I personally think the Lead Designer needs to be fired. 80 % of the designig ideas we see have been outdated for YEARS. The are better and less fustrating methods of freemium, yet they do this.

Unknown

While I agree to the sentiment, one of the big problems with these things is that ultimately people want very differing things. What players A and F consider to be great gameplay does not necessarily translate into what players B and C do. While some will want a slowed game with more strategy and many different options, some people will want the speedy game, with quick rewards for the ego and fast progression.

Unknown

Jester Day wrote:

While I agree to the sentiment, one of the big problems with these things is that ultimately people want very differing things. What players A and F consider to be great gameplay does not necessarily translate into what players B and C do. While some will want a slowed game with more strategy and many different options, some people will want the speedy game, with quick rewards for the ego and fast progression.

As much as you all say this is an issue it really isn't. Ever heard of thinks like democracy and other such things where not every1 gets their way but it still works just fine. There's way way more people who like faster gameplay even though there's those few of you who prefer boring.

Unknown

Jester Day wrote:

While I agree to the sentiment, one of the big problems with these things is that ultimately people want very differing things. What players A and F consider to be great gameplay does not necessarily translate into what players B and C do. While some will want a slowed game with more strategy and many different options, some people will want the speedy game, with quick rewards for the ego and fast progression.

They have to follow the gameplay route what more player like, which isn't the case right now.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Jester Day wrote:

While I agree to the sentiment, one of the big problems with these things is that ultimately people want very differing things. What players A and F consider to be great gameplay does not necessarily translate into what players B and C do. While some will want a slowed game with more strategy and many different options, some people will want the speedy game, with quick rewards for the ego and fast progression.

As much as you all say this is an issue it really isn't. Ever heard of thinks like democracy and other such things where not every1 gets their way but it still works just fine. There's way way more people who like faster gameplay even though there's those few of you who prefer boring.

Ever heard of democracy failing, which is quite often does, just you never see the end result because the powers that be stop it before it occurs? Or accounted for the fact that the most telling mechanic of democracy is that most changes, even small ones, takes a long time to come into effect and even longer to be telling on the populace.

We do not even know if more people want quicker gameplay or slower. We have no way fo telling (though I am not sure the developers have either to be fair.). What we do have is a forum which entails less than 1% of the total number of players playing the game. To in any way tie the speculations and ideas in here to democracy is as if you would allow only one percent of the population to vote, and not even they can vote the same way.

What are the numbers, not on the forum, but on the game overall? We do not know. The developers have a bit more of a guess, since they likely have more numbers to listen to from the administration.

Unknown

Ok so you're a communist? Lol

And yes, it's very easy to tell. Look through like every game in history? Successful games = fast paced games.
Slow games are forgotten and in a hurry. If they had introduced a few fast paced changes and not tried to slow the game to 30% speed there may have been a few people complaining but they didn't do that. They slowed it down so 90% of people are complaining with a couple people like you defending boringness.

Dayv

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

You've said yourselves the game is designed to have players hit a brick wall at a certain point. Do you think about what this statement feels like to players?

Wait... really?

Shaking my TinyKitty head.

Unknown

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

Since I've been playing you've added Hulk, Punisher, Patch, and Daredevil. Honestly, while good, with the whole Marvel Universe at your fingers, this is not enough. More cards. Why does it take freaking forever to max out the two stars? It takes WAY TOO LONG to level your characters on all star levels. Why are there only two four star characters? And why are they so terrible that nobody even cares about using them? Why do your characters only go up to four stars anyway? Where are the five stars?

I strongly disagree with you here. The limitations on the hero pool actually make the hero count troublesome, given the random nature of acquisition. More heroes means it is even harder for new people to get into the game.
Like you, I also want more heroes to play, and I appreciate each new addition - but if I was starting now, I'd be pretty close to ragequitting after I tossed my 5th unusuable reward cover over what I would perceive to be Pay 2 Win. To Demiurge's credit, they've tried to play smart by not adding any new 1-star heroes, but a growing number of heroes after the starter tier is going to form its own roadblock soon enough. How many tokens should a player have to go through to get their first 13-cover two-star hero? How many should they throw away? These numbers are escalating with each addition.

Unknown

Actually living in a working democracy and exercising my right to vote, I can assure you that I am not a communist by any stretch. That doesn't mean I am blind to the the flaws of the system, as much as I am aware of the benefits as well.

Now, first of all, a game is not a democracy, and probably never should be. The best games I have played has drawn extensively on the main developers idea and refined it to his vision.

As for looking through the most successful games in history? Yes, clearly chess is a speedgame. Othello is really fast as well. Monopoly is often done in.... less than a day at least.

Even if we limit the list to videogames, which you have a wikipedia lst of here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games, I can safely say that Wii sports isn't very fast. Super Mario is slower than anything known to modern man, and Tetris isn't really a speedfreak either.

I also hear that the Sims and World of Warcraft is insanely fastpaced, at least in comparison with glaciers.

So, unless you have anything to debunk those figures, let's get back to the point:

This forum has less than 2000 members. I'll be generous and say half of them are active. The game has in excess of 43972 players. If we grant that about a tenth of those are active, the number of players would still outnumber the number of voters by five to one. If you still do not think that is a problem for a "democratic" system, ask yourself why Greece never became the leading power of the world. Since they had a very similar system running with a few thousands year head start.

Unknown

starsrift wrote:

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

Since I've been playing you've added Hulk, Punisher, Patch, and Daredevil. Honestly, while good, with the whole Marvel Universe at your fingers, this is not enough. More cards. Why does it take freaking forever to max out the two stars? It takes WAY TOO LONG to level your characters on all star levels. Why are there only two four star characters? And why are they so terrible that nobody even cares about using them? Why do your characters only go up to four stars anyway? Where are the five stars?

I strongly disagree with you here. The limitations on the hero pool actually make the hero count troublesome, given the random nature of acquisition. More heroes means it is even harder for new people to get into the game.
Like you, I also want more heroes to play, and I appreciate each new addition - but if I was starting now, I'd be pretty close to ragequitting after I tossed my 5th unusuable reward cover over what I would perceive to be Pay 2 Win. To Demiurge's credit, they've tried to play smart by not adding any new 1-star heroes, but a growing number of heroes after the starter tier is going to form its own roadblock soon enough. How many tokens should a player have to go through to get their first 13-cover two-star hero? How many should they throw away? These numbers are escalating with each addition.

A larger pool of heroes coupled with faster progression (more rewards, tokens ISO etc) means players have more chances to get what they want. And devs can make more money when people buy the covers they really really want or feel they need. I suspect you're in the vast minority when you suggest there's too many characters in the game. I feel like the more the better.

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

You've said yourselves the game is designed to have players hit a brick wall at a certain point. Do you think about what this statement feels like to players?

Wait... really?

Shaking my TinyKitty head.

Yeah I just read it last night, was dumbfounded. I'll try to find it.

Edit to add: yeah the post I was thinking of didn't exactly say that, in fact it said the opposite lol but what I said still stands, because I'm sure every single person on the forums knows when I'm talking about because like me they've experienced it

Unknown

starsrift wrote:

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

Since I've been playing you've added Hulk, Punisher, Patch, and Daredevil. Honestly, while good, with the whole Marvel Universe at your fingers, this is not enough. More cards. Why does it take freaking forever to max out the two stars? It takes WAY TOO LONG to level your characters on all star levels. Why are there only two four star characters? And why are they so terrible that nobody even cares about using them? Why do your characters only go up to four stars anyway? Where are the five stars?

I strongly disagree with you here. The limitations on the hero pool actually make the hero count troublesome, given the random nature of acquisition. More heroes means it is even harder for new people to get into the game.
Like you, I also want more heroes to play, and I appreciate each new addition - but if I was starting now, I'd be pretty close to ragequitting after I tossed my 5th unusuable reward cover over what I would perceive to be Pay 2 Win. To Demiurge's credit, they've tried to play smart by not adding any new 1-star heroes, but a growing number of heroes after the starter tier is going to form its own roadblock soon enough. How many tokens should a player have to go through to get their first 13-cover two-star hero? How many should they throw away? These numbers are escalating with each addition.

Perhaps what needs to happen instead is that the devs alter the packs slightly. Instead of having "chance of 1* or greater, chance of 2* or greater, etc" instead they have something like more focused packs you can purchase. Each pack contains ONLY specific heroes, perhaps 6 different ones. That way people can aim a little better for the covers they want. Packs could increase in price depending on the heroes within them. Like the ones they offer special during events that contain just particular heroes, but use that method for ALL packs and ALL heroes.

Unknown

Jester Day wrote:

Actually living in a working democracy and exercising my right to vote, I can assure you that I am not a communist by any stretch. That doesn't mean I am blind to the the flaws of the system, as much as I am aware of the benefits as well.

Now, first of all, a game is not a democracy, and probably never should be. The best games I have played has drawn extensively on the main developers idea and refined it to his vision.

As for looking through the most successful games in history? Yes, clearly chess is a speedgame. Othello is really fast as well. Monopoly is often done in.... less than a day at least.

Even if we limit the list to videogames, which you have a wikipedia lst of here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games, I can safely say that Wii sports isn't very fast. Super Mario is slower than anything known to modern man, and Tetris isn't really a speedfreak either.

I also hear that the Sims and World of Warcraft is insanely fastpaced, at least in comparison with glaciers.

So, unless you have anything to debunk those figures, let's get back to the point:

This forum has less than 2000 members. I'll be generous and say half of them are active. The game has in excess of 43972 players. If we grant that about a tenth of those are active, the number of players would still outnumber the number of voters by five to one. If you still do not think that is a problem for a "democratic" system, ask yourself why Greece never became the leading power of the world. Since they had a very similar system running with a few thousands year head start.

WoW there is tons of places for hack & slash.
Sims is for 8 year olds and housewives (and is still WAY WAY faster than this)
Chess lost it's luster in like the 40's or something.
People seriously still play monopoly? I remember never finishing the game because it was always TOO SLOW.
I seriously do not know a single person who plays board games anymore, are you still living in Ancient Greece?

The democracy comment was a joke - lol @ you for taking it seriously.

Tetris and Mario brothers can both be played at a fast pace. You can take your time if you want but your not forced.
Go look at any list of "most successful" games of any if the past 5 years. 9/10 are fast paced games. Look on top the App Store charts, not too many games there that move this slow.

Fast paced MPQ was a 4.5 star rating. Slow pace MOQ has a 2.5* rating.

Unknown

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

I suspect you're in the vast minority when you suggest there's too many characters in the game. I feel like the more the better.

If dev's are able to balance them good, then yes the more the marrier.
If they're not able to balance them you'll only end up with a lot of broken combos.

I'd like more characters, but it's annoying if/when it means you'll have to fight *those-two-guys* ever tinykittying fight.
I love it if it means you have a lot of great combos which suit your specific playing style.

Unknown

But you miss the point that this is not only an app game.

Also, list for 2009: http://voices.yahoo.com/the-top-10-best-selling-video-games-2009-5058696.html?cat=19. While I can give Call of duty and Mario Cart the description fastpaced, the others do not really fit the bill.

For 2010: http://listphobia.com/2010/11/21/10-best-selling-video-games-of-2010/. Fair enough, another Call of Duty title, and I suppose Halo is fast as well (I honestly played it too little to tell).

2011: Was a bit harder to find much of a list, but this'll have to do: http://todaynewsgazette.com/best-selling-video-games-of-2011/. We can clearly say that Call of Duty is likely the game they should make by now? Jokes aside, Call of Duty and Gears of War are the fastest there. After that likely Battlefield 3, which is capable of really fast situations.

2012: http://metro.co.uk/2013/01/14/100-best-selling-games-of-2012-revealed-3351774/ I guess we better just give up and play Call of Duty... Halo and Borderlands at 3th and 10th are fast games I suppose.

2013: http://bestsellers.co/best-selling-video-games-2013/. Well?


Also, it might surprise you that boardgames actually sell better than ever, including Monopoly (though, just as you, I will NEVER understand why. As you imply, it is only minimally less boring than watching paint dry).

Also, serious? I am taking this seriously enough to actually debunk your point, but far from seriously enough to be emotionally too invested.

Unknown

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

(snipping previous quotes to avoid a Homerian epic)
A larger pool of heroes coupled with faster progression (more rewards, tokens ISO etc) means players have more chances to get what they want. And devs can make more money when people buy the covers they really really want or feel they need. I suspect you're in the vast minority when you suggest there's too many characters in the game. I feel like the more the better.

I agree with all of those sentences, and especially the second - but the player pool size limitation makes them irrelevant. How does a player know what heroes they want? How do they know what's available, what the heroes do? This information is available in a wiki and at least partially in these forums, yes, but it's not in game until you possess it. Progression charts of the characters really should be in the game itself somewhere, besides on the cover itself as you gain them. Again, how many covers are new players going to be throwing away because they don't have room for them?

dearbluey wrote:

Perhaps what needs to happen instead is that the devs alter the packs slightly. Instead of having "chance of 1* or greater, chance of 2* or greater, etc" instead they have something like more focused packs you can purchase. Each pack contains ONLY specific heroes, perhaps 6 different ones. That way people can aim a little better for the covers they want. Packs could increase in price depending on the heroes within them. Like the ones they offer special during events that contain just particular heroes, but use that method for ALL packs and ALL heroes.

That is an elegant solution to keeping the player hero pool size limitation.
Personally, I'd advocate removing the character cap completely so that you can fearlessly experiment with each cover you randomly acquire, but that's just me. Right now the consensus is to only spend HP on increasing your pool size, at least until you gain a majority of the characters. Why? That's silly. To go back to what CEK said above, the more the merrier! Encourage players to spend their HP on increasing and customizing the covers, spend it on shields or whatever else, not increasing their hero limit.

But any which way you go, until that's addressed, dumping in every Marvel character in Dark Reign seems a little shortsighted. Good for us, since we got in earlier, but bad for new players.
When I joined in - about the same time as CEK, before Hulk - already folks were saying "I heard MPQ was just a P2W, cash grab for all the things", and I was able to quite honestly respond, "It seems that way at first, but they frontload a lot of the elements, you can wait them out." I might be able to still say that now, but not for too much longer.

That said, they're not being terribly slow about adding them in. There are funbalance issues the designers have to consider with each new character.

Unknown

Crazyeyeskiller wrote:

You've said yourselves the game is designed to have players hit a brick wall at a certain point. Do you think about what this statement feels like to players? Why would you EVER want people to be frustrated annoyed or angry about their experience with your simple match 3 game? People should feel like they have accomplished something, made progress, gotten better, stronger, and faster EVERY TIME THEY LOG IN TO YOUR GAME.

You know, in other games I didn't mind hitting a brick wall at some point. It was usually due to some overlook right there (not finding some hidden) or early on (bad build). Or just temporary setback, going away after doing some more missions.

Why I didn't mind was that I could discover ways to overcome that wall. I mean *sensible* ways. Like focus on some things. Or just play better losing less valuables.

If on replay I did better in the first place the obstacle was not there at all.

but here it's quite the opposite, you get the penalty for playing better. There is hardly any way of recovery or to make things better you're forced to do stupid things like deliberate losing and/or drag in outside resources ($$$$) to compensate somewhat (to pay shields, boosts).

Unknown

Jester Day wrote:

While I agree to the sentiment, one of the big problems with these things is that ultimately people want very differing things. What players A and F consider to be great gameplay does not necessarily translate into what players B and C do. While some will want a slowed game with more strategy and many different options, some people will want the speedy game, with quick rewards for the ego and fast progression.

True, but IMO there are clear points of overall agreements, like that losing 90 pts while you gained 20 playing or that some basic respec system is needed at least due to changing the environment.