Is it really hard to make new PVE's?

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  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,311 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Yes, agree. I made a thread about this a while ago. New PVEs are only cool the first time around and maybe the second. Every time afterwards it will invoke a roll of the eyes and a sigh "why cannot we get new content?" from most players. So it's a huge amount of work for something that will be enjoyed by players literally for a few days. They could use that time and effort instead creating or fixing things that add permanent enjoyement.
  • GurlBYE
    GurlBYE Posts: 1,218 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Pve would be a return on investment if you changed reward structure and came up with ideas that didn't have people grinding nodes to burnout.

    It's ok for a medium difficulty node with no story and a reward obtainable by many.
    They have to buy hero points to slot them or earn them so they have to make more.

    Also I'm not super experienced but I'm fairly certain debugging isn't a whole team job. its a process that never ends especially with a game thats constantly updated.
    It's not so much an excuse for a lack of changes elsewhere.
  • GurlBYE
    GurlBYE Posts: 1,218 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Pylgrim wrote:
    Yes, agree. I made a thread about this a while ago. New PVEs are only cool the first time around and maybe the second. Every time afterwards it will invoke a roll of the eyes and a sigh "why cannot we get new content?" from most players. So it's a huge amount of work for something that will be enjoyed by players literally for a few days. They could use that time and effort instead creating or fixing things that add permanent enjoyement.
    The rewards are the enjoyment, the fact that if a new 7 day is released, people will be burned out on day 1.

    The idea should be more like (ugh even though I'm not a huge fan) ultron, and antman, less like enemy of the state.
  • Unknown
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    GurlBYE wrote:
    Pylgrim wrote:
    Yes, agree. I made a thread about this a while ago. New PVEs are only cool the first time around and maybe the second. Every time afterwards it will invoke a roll of the eyes and a sigh "why cannot we get new content?" from most players. So it's a huge amount of work for something that will be enjoyed by players literally for a few days. They could use that time and effort instead creating or fixing things that add permanent enjoyement.
    The rewards are the enjoyment, the fact that if a new 7 day is released, people will be burned out on day 1.

    The idea should be more like (ugh even though I'm not a huge fan) ultron, and antman, less like enemy of the state.
    enemy of the state was pretty epic
    GurlBYE wrote:
    Pve would be a return on investment if you changed reward structure and came up with ideas that didn't have people grinding nodes to burnout.

    It's ok for a medium difficulty node with no story and a reward obtainable by many.
    They have to buy hero points to slot them or earn them so they have to make more.

    Also I'm not super experienced but I'm fairly certain debugging isn't a whole team job. its a process that never ends especially with a game thats constantly updated.
    It's not so much an excuse for a lack of changes elsewhere.

    Too bad D3 doesn't agree with u icon_e_sad.gif
  • TLCstormz
    TLCstormz Posts: 1,668
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    The simple fact that people are arguing AGAINST new storylines in and is itself is not only ridiculous, but also shows a bigger issue with the game :

    Why in the heck do we have to fight / argue / want more content IN THE FIRST PLACE????? lol. Shouldn't all of the stuff that's been suggested in here be given "freely" without anyone having to request it, let alone fight for the table scraps?
  • nwman
    nwman Posts: 331 Mover and Shaker
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    I honestly don't even care about the story, like was said once or twice cool, but I have my marvel unlimited and read lots of stories there.

    What I REALLY want is to not play the same battles all the time.

    Even if they could swap out characters on existing stories. Drop or change the story if you have to.

    If there is a licensing issue then Please create another story where this can work and run that event 2X more than the others.
  • Unknown
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    Pylgrim wrote:
    Yes, agree. I made a thread about this a while ago. New PVEs are only cool the first time around and maybe the second. Every time afterwards it will invoke a roll of the eyes and a sigh "why cannot we get new content?" from most players. So it's a huge amount of work for something that will be enjoyed by players literally for a few days. They could use that time and effort instead creating or fixing things that add permanent enjoyement.

    It's because we still have so few PvE templates to choose from. If Demiurge had, say, 30 different templates we would see a lot more variation and less complaints about recycled PvE's. But alas, right now MPQ has maybe half of that (or at least it feels like that little).

    Look, I understand it might be a nuisance for Demiurge to make new PvE scenarios from scratch and most people would rather see new characters than new PvE content anyway. I'm not saying they should concentrate on PvE all the time, just amp up a little bit from the current hiatus. The way I see it every new PvE template prolongs the overall rotation and eases up the frustration of "not this PvE again". That's why I cheered when we got EotS and was very disappointed when they didn't release a new one in a long, long time.
  • Heartburn
    Heartburn Posts: 527
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    Many of the complaints boil down to their team is so tiny that i have to choose between game breaking fixes or new stories. i would have to agree that game breaking fixes take priority, but is it so hard to make a new level once we cycle all the existing PVEs? No one is saying i want the next 5 event to be new, just 1 new event after you run every single event. the best thing is once you come out with a few the timeline grows between the next one so they keep adding more time to do other things.
    now for the small team problem, they have been running since Oct. 3 2013, if they do not have enough data to show that this is a cash cow and needs to expand their team to support and to maintain it to keep users hooked then this game deserves to fall into oblivion. This is not launch day this is well established game that revolves around events but they are not making events how does that even makes sense? if there were no events we just be grinding prologue grinding for iso8.png, 20 iso8.png at a time. EVEN the Skrull events where the typical baddies are switched around would be awesome and instantly double or triple their timeline for a unique event. now there many be something in the works but we don't get enough contact on their games own forum to even be aware of a new event in the works.

    designing new events is not that hard. here is one: three day event "(villain name) attacks" oh no (villain Name) has attacked (Shield, avenger tower, Professor x academy, ect) and kidnapped Heroes A and B (C if Villain NPC where hero C is a new release or 4 star.png ) day 1 rescue hero A, day 2 rescue Hero B, day 3 foil plot and beat up Villain/rescue Hero C. win covers of Hero A day 1 progressive reward, win hero B cover as progressive reward day 2, day 3 win villain if 3 star.png plus total progressive reward of 4* or hero C were applicable. Villain can also be a blackmailed hero where on day 1 drops a hint that he might be, day 2 confront hero about blackmail and day 3 go against blackmailer. this can be Grouped by a variety of character links: mutants, enhanced humans, energy based heroes...literally anything to group any heroes. play musical chars a few times while stalling to input the next new thing after rerunning all the old events first, naturally.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,311 Chairperson of the Boards
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    GurlBYE wrote:
    The idea should be more like (ugh even though I'm not a huge fan) ultron, and antman, less like enemy of the state.

    See, that's exactly my point. EoS was once upon a time (not even that long ago!) brand new. They designed a new storyline, a new villain, new goons, and new node types; they even redesigned visually all versions of Wolvie! Now, after it's third run it is something that you hate. Even the brand new, super different Ultron event that you'd rather have is not your cup of tea. See? A TON of work and some people didn't even like it and they have only been able to use it for a few days, a few times and every time they cycle it, people will hate it a bit more. The return-investment ratio seems abysmal to me.
    Ariakos wrote:
    It's because we still have so few PvE templates to choose from. If Demiurge had, say, 30 different templates we would see a lot more variation and less complaints about recycled PvE's. But alas, right now MPQ has maybe half of that (or at least it feels like that little).

    Look, I understand it might be a nuisance for Demiurge to make new PvE scenarios from scratch and most people would rather see new characters than new PvE content anyway. I'm not saying they should concentrate on PvE all the time, just amp up a little bit from the current hiatus. The way I see it every new PvE template prolongs the overall rotation and eases up the frustration of "not this PvE again". That's why I cheered when we got EotS and was very disappointed when they didn't release a new one in a long, long time.

    Sure, that's precisely why they /still/ make new PVEs even under the conditions outlined above. Gathering a good amount of different PVEs will diminish the necessity and frequency of repetition, and as such the weariness it creates in players. But it takes time and they definitely are not giving it priority. That said, there's no current hiatus. Sentry. Deadpool. Rocket and Groot. Enemy of State. Ultron. The pace at which these events have come around suggest that we're not due a new one just yet.
    Heartburn wrote:
    designing new events is not that hard. here is one: three day event "(villain name) attacks" oh no (villain Name) has attacked (Shield, avenger tower, Professor x academy, ect) and kidnapped Heroes A and B (C if Villain NPC where hero C is a new release or 4 star.png ) day 1 rescue hero A, day 2 rescue Hero B, day 3 foil plot and beat up Villain/rescue Hero C. win covers of Hero A day 1 progressive reward, win hero B cover as progressive reward day 2, day 3 win villain if 3 star.png plus total progressive reward of 4* or hero C were applicable. Villain can also be a blackmailed hero where on day 1 drops a hint that he might be, day 2 confront hero about blackmail and day 3 go against blackmailer. this can be Grouped by a variety of character links: mutants, enhanced humans, energy based heroes...literally anything to group any heroes. play musical chars a few times while stalling to input the next new thing after rerunning all the old events first, naturally.

    Cool idea. Now design every single node, enemies and rewards. Decide rewards for the event. Plan the timing of the event. Get approval from Marvel. Code the whole thing. Write dialogue and generate assets. Test it for technical issues. Test if it's actually fun. Redesign accordingly. Get approval from Marvel for the changes. Code the changes. Rewrite and/or regenerate assets if necessary. Test for technical issues. Test for fun. Redesign accordingly, etc., etc., etc.

    I'm sorry but armchair philosophers like you that pretend that coming up with an idea is the most important part of any project and also the easiest, suggesting that perceived insufficiency is not caused by a lack of resources, time, or physical capability, but rather, of will are my pet peeve.
  • Unknown
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    TLCstormz wrote:
    The simple fact that people are arguing AGAINST new storylines in and is itself is not only ridiculous, but also shows a bigger issue with the game :

    Why in the heck do we have to fight / argue / want more content IN THE FIRST PLACE????? lol. Shouldn't all of the stuff that's been suggested in here be given "freely" without anyone having to request it, let alone fight for the table scraps?
    I said it before and I'll say it again...when you live in a desert, the first time you see water you're ecstatic.

    You think it's normal not seeing water everyday....
    Heartburn wrote:
    designing new events is not that hard. here is one: three day event "(villain name) attacks" oh no (villain Name) has attacked (Shield, avenger tower, Professor x academy, ect) and kidnapped Heroes A and B (C if Villain NPC where hero C is a new release or 4 star.png ) day 1 rescue hero A, day 2 rescue Hero B, day 3 foil plot and beat up Villain/rescue Hero C. win covers of Hero A day 1 progressive reward, win hero B cover as progressive reward day 2, day 3 win villain if 3 star.png plus total progressive reward of 4* or hero C were applicable. Villain can also be a blackmailed hero where on day 1 drops a hint that he might be, day 2 confront hero about blackmail and day 3 go against blackmailer. this can be Grouped by a variety of character links: mutants, enhanced humans, energy based heroes...literally anything to group any heroes. play musical chars a few times while stalling to input the next new thing after rerunning all the old events first, naturally.

    YES! Or they need to engage with the community to comeup with events
    icon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gificon_mrgreen.gif
  • Heartburn
    Heartburn Posts: 527
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    Pylgrim wrote:
    Cool idea. Now design every single node, enemies and rewards. Decide rewards for the event. Plan the timing of the event. Get approval from Marvel. Code the whole thing. Write dialogue and generate assets. Test it for technical issues. Test if it's actually fun. Redesign accordingly. Get approval from Marvel for the changes. Code the changes. Rewrite and/or regenerate assets if necessary. Test for technical issues. Test for fun. Redesign accordingly, etc., etc., etc.

    I'm sorry but armchair philosophers like you that pretend that coming up with an idea is the most important part of any project and also the easiest, suggesting that perceived insufficiency is not caused by a lack of resources, time, or physical capability, but rather, of will are my pet peeve.

    no coming up with a cookie cutter idea where just the dialogue and some different minion type of rotating DDQ like fights that produce fun entertaining and rewarding events and plots that feels like new content without a lot of addition work that needs to be put in. this time scale could be on the weeks to months scale not 6 months scale we have been waiting so far. i doubt it would take more then a week of dedicated back and forth to iron out any dialogue issues for a simple 3 day event especial if they recruit subject matter experts or do some comic reading themselves if that is too burdensome they can limit the dialogue to only the first and last node, or even pull an ultron and have no dialogue. they can recycle already existing maps for part or even the whole event, or used some of the abandoned environmental tiles levels, all of them are pretty good.
    and i highly doubt they do as much testing as you suggest, or maybe it is just that their idea of fun does not match the many of the player's definition.
    and you are exactly right i am arm chairing it , cause that is all i can do here sit in my chair and make suggests that might help with the issue while i sit and wait for something new if there was more new content i would mostly likely be playing it or commenting "thanks devs for the new content".
    It looks like some of the DDP content got a free pass through, cause most of it makes no sense, if that is the case just make deadpool presents events and just to make new weird combos.

    if the team can not even justify the means to get the additional resources to support them to the point they are producing regular content for people spending on there product then that seems like failure of will that falls on the management team to meet customer expectations.
    And for the record I am a customer providing hopefully helpful constructive criticism, where is it appropriate to say great now go build it yourself. They don't tell me their struggles with programming MPQ i don't have the slightest clue on what they are currently struggling with so all i can do is speculate.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,311 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Heartburn wrote:
    Pylgrim wrote:
    Cool idea. Now design every single node, enemies and rewards. Decide rewards for the event. Plan the timing of the event. Get approval from Marvel. Code the whole thing. Write dialogue and generate assets. Test it for technical issues. Test if it's actually fun. Redesign accordingly. Get approval from Marvel for the changes. Code the changes. Rewrite and/or regenerate assets if necessary. Test for technical issues. Test for fun. Redesign accordingly, etc., etc., etc.

    I'm sorry but armchair philosophers like you that pretend that coming up with an idea is the most important part of any project and also the easiest, suggesting that perceived insufficiency is not caused by a lack of resources, time, or physical capability, but rather, of will are my pet peeve.

    no coming up with a cookie cutter idea where just the dialogue and some different minion type of rotating DDQ like fights that produce fun entertaining and rewarding events and plots that feels like new content without a lot of addition work that needs to be put in. this time scale could be on the weeks to months scale not 6 months scale we have been waiting so far.
    Demonstrably false. As it should be parsed for the short list I wrote, the average is 3 months. And it's not like they were idling in between those months. New characters, new features, new reward schemes, countless fixes at both the technical and game-mechanics, etc. They have been particularly prolific the past 6 months, especially when compared to the the year before.
    i doubt it would take more then a week of dedicated back and forth to iron out any dialogue issues for a simple 3 day event especial if they recruit subject matter experts or do some comic reading themselves if that is too burdensome they can limit the dialogue to only the first and last node, or even pull an ultron and have no dialogue. they can recycle already existing maps for part or even the whole event, or used some of the abandoned environmental tiles levels, all of them are pretty good.
    and i highly doubt they do as much testing as you suggest,
    I just wanted to point the highly subjective way of framing your approach that betrays how little you actually know about the subject. You think that it takes but a week; what frame of reference do you have to come up with that number? You literally made it up from what you imagine designing, coding and iterating is and how long it takes. Armchair philosophers always underestimate the amount of work anything takes; it's easier and more self-aggrandising to figure that people are slow or dumb and that's why reality doesn't match their ideals than acknowledge that they have no clue what they're talking about. It doesn't bear mentioning that you haven't ever created a game, but it seems to me that you haven't actually undergone any kind of creative project ever, or you'd know better. (Yes, that's why I take this sort of arguments kind of personally; I work creating media and I hear armchair critics -and clueless middle managers- allllll the time badly missing the mark when it comes to predict or evaluate the amount of work and effort anything takes.)

    Also where do you come from saying that you doubt that they playtest much? Because there are bugs and glitches here and there? You don't imagine the amounts of bugs that any original system includes, nor how many more are created each time they fix one or introduce a new feature. To get down to the point only one or two escaped someone's notice takes ridiculous amounts of man-hours. (or it may be that it didn't escape notice, but that they simply ran out of time before the alloted time of launching of the update or feature.)
    or maybe it is just that their idea of fun does not match the many of the player's definition.
    That's very subjective but sure. One of the main tenets of Mark Rosewater, Head Designer of one of the most popular and successful games in the world (MTG) is that you cannot possibly make everybody happy: the best you can do is try to make most people happy and and try to always make different people happy.
    and you are exactly right i am arm chairing it , cause that is all i can do here sit in my chair and make suggests that might help with the issue while i sit and wait for something new if there was more new content i would mostly likely be playing it or commenting "thanks devs for the new content".
    Ultron was only two and a half months ago. Growth Industries was week and a half ago. New stuff is coming up all the time and relatively frequently, especially taking in account, again, that they have been working on a lot of other stuff at the same time. If you expect any more frequent content than that, I could only tell you to start looking elsewhere; though I'm not entirely sure that you'll find that idealised game that pushes lots of brand new content every couple weeks.
    if the team can not even justify the means to get the additional resources to support them to the point they are producing regular content for people spending on there product then that seems like failure of will that falls on the management team to meet customer expectations.
    Haha yeah, that would go well swimmingly. They recruit more people to be able to do more work. The money to pay these new recruits needs to come from somewhere, namely, the game itself. So they introduce another monetising feature. Cue wailing outrage from people like yourself: "ahhh greedy bastards! Money, money, money that's ALL the care about! I refuse to give them one more cent!" et cetera. Armchair criticism once again neglects to account for all the factors, in order to be able to belittle other people's efforts.
    And for the record I am a customer providing hopefully helpful constructive criticism, where is it appropriate to say great now go build it yourself. They don't tell me their struggles with programming MPQ i don't have the slightest clue on what they are currently struggling with so all i can do is speculate.
    You say "helpful constructive criticism" but I don't think that term means what you think it does. And no, they don't have to sit down with a disgruntled, entitled fan, open their books, narrate their woes, and show you security camera footage of the staff working late into the nights to earn your sympathy and forgiveness over their alleged inability to satisfy your particular desires. Sure, feedback is welcome and necessary and if enough people ask for more events, they will for sure strive to please. However, taking in account the relatively small amount of upvotes normally generated by threads demanding this stuff, I'd be waiting comfortably seated on your armchair if I were you, because it seems that this "issue" is perceived by a rather small subset of the playing population.
  • GothicKratos
    GothicKratos Posts: 1,821 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I'm not saying that a new PvE story wouldn't be cool. It would. I'm saying, in my opinion, it's probably the last priority.

    I just want to emphasis this line specifically. I'm not trying to prove anyone right or wrong, but what I would do in their position and why I think that way.
  • Unknown
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    As a fellow developer I want to put in .02¢. I hate seeing this argument about finding bugs. I write tests around all my code so when there is a bug. I write a test, then find it and fix it. If the other 600 tests still pass I broke nothing else. If D3 wants to add test cases to their code call me otherwise keep breaking working code.
  • Cartz
    Cartz Posts: 73 Match Maker
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    nwman wrote:
    I honestly don't even care about the story, like was said once or twice cool, but I have my marvel unlimited and read lots of stories there.

    What I REALLY want is to not play the same battles all the time.

    Even if they could swap out characters on existing stories. Drop or change the story if you have to.

    If there is a licensing issue then Please create another story where this can work and run that event 2X more than the others.

    I agree with this. Im so sick of fighting the same characters over and over again pretty much every PvE. The story lines mean nothing anymore. we recently had the Rocket and Groot event and none of the guardians were buffed. The iso 8 Brotherhood where Magneto isnt buffed.

    Same templates. different buffed characters. Give us different enemies to go along with it. There arent many villians in the game so let us face some heroes once in a while. I think its only simulator and Deadpool PvE that happens. Its a nice change to come up against something other than Juggernaut, Ares, Daken, Bullseye, Venom and Yelena again and again and again.

    It makes PvE boring knowing ill come up against some combination of them for a vast majority of the nodes. Change it up please.
  • Turbosmooth
    Turbosmooth Posts: 213
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    New PvE content should be a consistent and high priority part of the game to keep the game fresh and relevant. I do count Ant-man to be new content and it was great! Every new character should have its own mini-story like that -- at least 4*s. So I hope this is a trend.

    I am a developer myself and I see that this game has a lot of stable framework where adding new such content should mostly be a matter of art/data/balancing/testing. Although the code is probably not as good as I give them credit for so there probably is some hard coded checks/scenarios that do require code changes to handle new PvE. In a perfect code base, all new content is data-driven. I can tell that the character power themselves are mainly hard coded since there are a lot of unique abilities and would be more difficult to make it all generic unlike maps/nodes/story.

    Marvel makes comic books constantly all the time. It would not be that hard for them to adapt existing stories. And yes, it is in Marvel's best interest to keep revenue from their games going.
  • Unknown
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    New PvE content should be a consistent and high priority part of the game to keep the game fresh and relevant. I do count Ant-man to be new content and it was great! Every new character should have its own mini-story like that -- at least 4*s. So I hope this is a trend.

    I am a developer myself and I see that this game has a lot of stable framework where adding new such content should mostly be a matter of art/data/balancing/testing. Although the code is probably not as good as I give them credit for so there probably is some hard coded checks/scenarios that do require code changes to handle new PvE. In a perfect code base, all new content is data-driven. I can tell that the character power themselves are mainly hard coded since there are a lot of unique abilities and would be more difficult to make it all generic unlike maps/nodes/story.

    Marvel makes comic books constantly all the time. It would not be that hard for them to adapt existing stories. And yes, it is in Marvel's best interest to keep revenue from their games going.
    traedoril wrote:
    As a fellow developer I want to put in .02¢. I hate seeing this argument about finding bugs. I write tests around all my code so when there is a bug. I write a test, then find it and fix it. If the other 600 tests still pass I broke nothing else. If D3 wants to add test cases to their code call me otherwise keep breaking working code.

    woohoo indsutry putting their money where their mouth is so D3 has no excuses in that realm

    almost feels like a game informer article now, getting down to the truth