Suggestions to reduce stress

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Lately I've been getting more hardcore into MPQ. I'm in early-to-mid 3* land, and it's very frustrating but I'm finding enough in it to have fun more often than not. Like everyone, I've come up with some ideas for how to make things better, or at least less stressful when I'm playing.

Stress Point #1 PVP points awarded for winning a fight is often less than points promised in the fight preview.

I know it's not intended as a bait and switch, but the psychological victimization is still the same. I don't know what the actual details are for the awarded points to have been adjusted from the promised points, probably some sort of effect from shifting values of everyone playing during an event. The point is that this negative effect is entirely out of the player's control and without explanation.

Suggestion Always award the promised points after a win, but queue up an adjustment value as needed but separately

I'd feel a lot better about these adjustments if I can at least have an initial experience of seeing my progress bars count up the full amount of the promised fight value first. After that count is finished, I'd be in a better mood to see an adjustment amount count down on the bars, especially if there's some sort of explanation what the adjustment is for.

In fact, I'd feel even better if the adjustment value didn't apply right away but got queued up. And then every time I preview a possible pvp fight, the adjustment value is show next to the fight value. And if I take the fight, the adjustment value is applied to the fight value before the fight starts. Overall that would give me the confidence that I can count on the value of any fight I consider taking, and thus I have better control over how these adjustments get applied to my progress.

Stress Point #2 AI opponents will commonly hit me with multiple powers in a row while I'm helpless to defend or recover.

Seems to me the AI tends to save up its powers to unleash all in one turn. I could be wrong that it does that, but the psychological effect is the same. It makes me want to throw my phone at the wall. But the only 'reasonable' option I have is to rage quit early in the fight.

Suggestion Change the nature of lock tiles to allow for lockouts of power chaining.

There are various characters who use lock or pseudo-lock tiles in certain ways, like Spider-Man, Invisible Woman, Quicksilver, etc. And lock tiles tend to be not valued by players. I know I always feel like they get in my way when I'm trying to line up plays.

What if web tiles and lock tiles were adjusted such that whenever an opponent fires a power, one of your lock tiles at random would be automatically shattered, and the opponent is locked out from firing any other power for the rest of the turn. Even passive powers. That way, even if the AI gets a jackpot of ap points, if I can keep lock tiles out, the AI can only fire one power a turn at me, and I have a fighting chance instead of everything being out of control and me losing.

And I like the potential for it to help raise the value of some underused characters like Bag-Man and Venom (if their web tiles are given this lockout ability), while reigning in some of the extra high value character powers like Kamala Khan's auto heal (which would get locked out) or Iron Fist's passive that generates an attack tile (which would lock out the rest of the team powers for the rest of the turn).

It would probably make matches longer. And a number of characters would probably need a balance pass. But I like the design space it opens up.

Stress Point #3 PvP damage can be a big whammy while engaged in fights in times of high competition.

I don't mind taking hits in PvP. And I can't really afford shields while I'm starved for roster slots. But there have been many times when I finish a pvp match and get hit with the whammy that I lost 3x my fight's value or more from pvp hits while I was playing. It's then a challenge to keep up my morale.

Suggestion Introduce a free low-efficiency pvp shield type that can scale incoming PvP damage during fights relative to the value of the pvp fight you're playing.

I have a specific vision in mind, but in general what I'm looking for is for incoming pvp damage to be soft capped to about 90% ish of the value of the fight. That way I can rely on the fact that so long as I'm winning fights I'm keeping my rewards progress at least marginally positive and never caught in rage-inducing negative swings.

As for my specific vision, I'd suggest introducing a new type of character in the game that is primarily a support character. Someone who will guard your team's back while they're busy fighting a battle. Marvel characters that could fit this support role might be like Herbie from the Fantastic Four, Jarvis from Iron Man, or Uatu the Watcher. These characters can have covers just like normal characters.

Next, I'd suggest adding a third tab to the pvp missions and pve missions tabs. This third tab would be the player's home base. In this tab, the player can slot a support character to provide this pvp shield during fights. I'd suggest the shield can be charged by spending leftover covers. For example, let's say Herbie is my support character, and he likes black and blue ability colors. I can spend a 1* Venom black cover to charge Herbie's shield by 1 point, or spend a 3* Captain America blue cover to charge by 3 points. I'd suggest this shield cap out at around 50 points.

How would this shield apply during fights? I'd suggest that PvP damage coming in will be counted for full value up to a certain point relative to the value of your current fight, then any further incoming damage is reduced down to 1 point. For example, if I slot in Herbie as my support character, and his shield is charged to 33 points, and I enter a PvP fight worth 30 points, the shield threshold would be set at (100 - 33)% of 30, or 20 points. Incoming damage up to 20 are treated as full value, while any damage after that are 1 point each. If while fighting I take damage of -14, -12 +3, -8 and -13, Herbie will adjust that to -14, -12, +3, -1, and -1. If I win my fight, I get +30 from the fight and -25 from the beatings from others. Tough break, but still positive. And if I can rely on getting at least a few points per fight, I can actually judge whether its worth playing longer to stretch to the next reward.

I'd also suggest that Herbie's shield will lose a few points for every pvp damage coming in. So in the above example, after the fight is over, Herbie's shield would drop 5 or more points.

Of course reward progressions would need a balance pass to compensate for improved fight returns over the community.

But overall, hitting me with less surprise negatives and making a show of giving me rewards that were promised would go a long way towards reducing my stress.

Or I guess I could always pay to win. But I probably won't.

Anyway, thanks devs for the game.