One step forward, but still not compelling in the long-term

Unknown

I think I'm back to just playing DPD again. Tried Blue Shift, and Hulk, and my honest impression is that the grind will be the same as having to grind for placement (and blue shift I consistently got hit for -250 points as soon as I got around 800).

I'll play DPD, and grab the 3/4*'s from that, which is unfortunate. I'd like to play MPQ more, and drop some more funding into the game, but the amount of grind is far, far outside the realm of what I consider reasonable for a long-term gaming hobby.

If they just shifted everything into progression rewards instead of placement, and substantially cut down on the amount of grind required (think 1/2 or less than the current amount of grind), I'd play more regularly and put money in again.

But if I have to play every day for probably probably 10+ hours for PvP and 30-42 hours for a PvE to get progression rewards, I have no motivation to do anything than just play DPD until I stop doing even that because the odds are so **** and low that you never actually pull anything.

So while the changes may be fine for people who enjoy the current setup, I've never enjoyed competitive PvP, or PvE for that matter. I don't enjoy grinding so much that it's a repetitive slog and I have to ask myself why I even care whether or not I get covers, or play for that matter. I want a FUN puzzle game, where the grind is just enough that you feel that you can play around with your roster and have some fun challenge. The challenge should not be testing how much you can grind, how many health packs / shields you can use, or similar artificial constraints. None of that is actually fun, at least to me. I know other people may feel differently.

I'm so dispirited by MPQ. I love the core mechanics, but I hate the relentlessly grindy progression system.

wymtime

I think you have some of your timing off for PVP and possibly PVE. For PVP if you are spending 10+ hours to get progression you are playing a lot more than you have too. I personally don't have any 4* above 209 and regularly hit 1000 points in PVP and shield after that for my season score for my alliance. I start the PVP with a little over 24 hrs left in my slice and in 1 HR can get close to 600 points. I don't play PVP until the next day. The next day I play for about 1/2 hour and get to about 750-800 with about 10 hrs left. Then with 8 hrs left I climb above 1000 and shield. The last push takes 30-45 min. So I am playing PVP for a little over 2 hrs to hit 1000 points. That is really not much time for a 4* cover.
PVE: first clear takes 45 min with the extra nodes, then each extra clear takes about 30 min. If you are playing for progression only that means you would I would play 3-4 clears a day so another 2 hrs max. So for the week you are looking at 14 hrs a week for PVE.

DPDQ takes about 15-20 min to clear and can easily be spread out through the day.
Total playing time each day for progression in DPDQ, PVE, and PVP turns out to be 3HR 20 min a day if you start each PVE right away. Time could get you 2 legendary tokens from PVE 1 from DPDQ, and 3 4* from PVP for 22 hrs a week of playing. This does not include HP won or ISO won or token pulls, or rewards for placement in PVP and PVE.

It that hard to progress in today's game.

cyineedsn

As noted above many people are managing 1000k in pvp with basically only 3*s, and it does not take anywhere near 10 hours.. If you are spending ungodly amounts of time in pvp climbing and getting beat down, then climbing and getting beat down, and repeating, then need to re-evaluate the timing of when you are trying to play and climb in pvp.

mohio

So, I agree to me it doesn't feel so bad. BUT, take a minute and reread what you wrote. 22 hours a week. That's a part time job. Sure its not the 40+ that the op stated, but that's still a lot of time to dedicate to a game. In the end I think it just boils down to wants/needs/expectations. Op would like something he can more casually progress doing. So, that's going to be ddq for now unless/until devs create something new or change things up. For the rest of us, we're happy playing more competitively and can progress quicker by devoting more time to it. Just different approaches to the game, no one is right or wrong here.

puppychow

A number of points. I have no trouble breaking 1k with my roster, and that's w/ two 181s as the highest level characters. According to steam, I'm logging in around 180 hours per month, or 45 hours a week. Log in early morning to clear a sub, clear ddq, hit a few targets in pvp. Drop in 8 hours later to clear sub again, plus more pvp. Then grind 4 hours later and line up juicy targets for pvp. Final pve grind 1 hour prior to expiration. Hit pvp before going to bed. This is 7 days a week, every month. Steam sez that adds up to 180 hours per month. Oops!

cyineedsn

mohio wrote:

So, I agree to me it doesn't feel so bad. BUT, take a minute and reread what you wrote. 22 hours a week. That's a part time job. Sure its not the 40+ that the op stated, but that's still a lot of time to dedicate to a game. In the end I think it just boils down to wants/needs/expectations. Op would like something he can more casually progress doing. So, that's going to be ddq for now unless/until devs create something new or change things up. For the rest of us, we're happy playing more competitively and can progress quicker by devoting more time to it. Just different approaches to the game, no one is right or wrong here.

Yup. The easy solution to that is to substract the PVE grind lol

Unknown

cyineedsn wrote:

Yup. The easy solution to that is to substract the PVE grind lol

That's not much of a solution for me though. I don't actually enjoy the PvP format, never have. Tolerated it since it had a better reward structure, but always found it mindlessly repetitive and the antithesis of fun.

PvE would be a lot more fun, if they substantially cut down on the grind required to earn covers through it.

For instance, everyone finds PvE very grindy, but if they moved all rewards to progression and changed the rewards structure so you only need to do a single pass through each sub to hit full progression, then 7-day events would actually be FUN.... so long as they didn't pull a gauntlet and add 15x as many nodes to ensure it's just as much of a slog to get through, while presenting it like some great thing where they listened to customer / player feedback. It's not listening if there's no meaningful change in the amount of grind required.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

cyineedsn wrote:

Yup. The easy solution to that is to substract the PVE grind lol

That's not much of a solution for me though. I don't actually enjoy the PvP format, never have. Tolerated it since it had a better reward structure, but always found it mindlessly repetitive and the antithesis of fun.

PvE would be a lot more fun, if they substantially cut down on the grind required to earn covers through it.

For instance, everyone finds PvE very grindy, but if they moved all rewards to progression and changed the rewards structure so you only need to do a single pass through each sub to hit full progression, then 7-day events would actually be FUN.... so long as they didn't pull a gauntlet and add 15x as many nodes to ensure it's just as much of a slog to get through, while presenting it like some great thing where they listened to customer / player feedback. It's not listening if there's no meaningful change in the amount of grind required.

Another biggest problem with pve if you want to achieve good rewards you have to play it on schedule. Basically they tell you 'every 8 hours put away your kids, work, sleep and whatever other unimportant things and do the grind - that's the only way to succed'

XandorXerxes

theHappyDance wrote:

cyineedsn wrote:

Yup. The easy solution to that is to substract the PVE grind lol

That's not much of a solution for me though. I don't actually enjoy the PvP format, never have. Tolerated it since it had a better reward structure, but always found it mindlessly repetitive and the antithesis of fun.

PvE would be a lot more fun, if they substantially cut down on the grind required to earn covers through it.

For instance, everyone finds PvE very grindy, but if they moved all rewards to progression and changed the rewards structure so you only need to do a single pass through each sub to hit full progression, then 7-day events would actually be FUN.... so long as they didn't pull a gauntlet and add 15x as many nodes to ensure it's just as much of a slog to get through, while presenting it like some great thing where they listened to customer / player feedback. It's not listening if there's no meaningful change in the amount of grind required.

I'm with you here - I hadn't really done PvE in a long time because I don't have time to do the super-grinds at the end to place. Figured I'd try for a token this time. I've done 3x clears on every hulk node so far (except the latest one), and I'm at about 18K. I've started debating how much I really want this token - can't imagine I'll do another 7 day event.