On Generosity (Devs feel vs players)

Unknown

Stinginess, unfortunately, is a reality of the F2P model.

Progress can't be too fast, or else people would get to the end, have nothing more to play for and more likely quit.

If you want a version of this game without Stingyness, play the console version when it comes out.

Of course... who's to say you'll play it as much as you played this one? Yeah, you'll get your XFW and 4or covers a heck of a lot quicker

But will it keep you interested as much as this slow, slow grind does?

That's the F2P trick.

I know I ain't going to quit playing this game anytime soon. One 3* cover a day is slow enough progress that I'll keep coming back, even if in the console version it'll be closer to one new, never a duplicate cover a mission, or something like that.

rollx

I usually wake up in the morning, happy about the rewards I'm about to earn the day before, grind my dpd down and look forwards to the days events. This week, I've been extremely disappointed, only getting on to do my deadpool daily, maybe hit a node or two with galactus just to get fed up and not open the app again until the next day. What a blunder.

Linkster79

optimus2861 wrote:

I'm convinced now that D3 has moved MPQ to the "whale or GTFO" phase of this game. It's when a FTP game cannibalizes the wallets of its whales to the maximum extent possible in the game's short remaining shelf life, simultaneously inflicting increasing pain/pressure points on the free/low-$ users to either make them become whales, or quit.

So the devs don't care to be generous to the lesser players any more. They likely know by now that the game won't make it another year, and their marching orders are "Monetize, monetize, monetize. If you have users who won't monetize, start forcing them out." Hence all the rush of 4* characters, and now 5* characters out of reach beyond anyone but mega-whales. Hence the stinginess of the Anniversary & Galactus tokens. Hence the ludicrous difficulty of the Galactus event.

The end of this phase is reached when new content stops being developed. Then the game coasts along on retread events & characters for a short while for the last wallet squeeze. Then the lights go out.

Well, it's been fun. I'll stick around a while yet, but my wallet's permanently closed.

The thing is CEO's, board members and all sorts of highest ups look at figures and figures only. They see last years numbers and have most likely seen that there might be a slight profit or heck maybe even a slight loss and have stated that those numbers need to be improved or we may seriously consider supporting this product. Don't forget they are now owned by Sega and they want to see an immediate return on their investment. Marvel Puzzle Quest goes belly up then Magic The Gathering has a huge following to take up the baton. My natural cynic tells me this so called celebration is only there to balance the books until PQ:MTG is ready to roll out then a whole load of new whales get harpooned.

Unknown

colwag wrote:

Stinginess, unfortunately, is a reality of the F2P model.

…

That's the F2P trick.

...

Sorry, but still not as true as some would have people believe, no matter how much it is repeated.

Marvel Future Fight (and 1000s of other games, for that matter) says, "Hi!"

For those who have literally never played any other FTP game, this is easy enough to believe. For everyone else? Not so much. Off the top of my head, developers like Halfbrick, Netmarble, and Kiloo, of many, MANY others offer FTP titles that are BIZARRELY generous when seen in the context of MPQ. Are there FTP titles that are essentially ATM machines infused with gambling mechanics slapped onto a "game" skin? Sure, plenty.

Not trying to pick a fight, but every time I see comments like this I feel tempted to undergo the herculean task of listing every single FTP game out there that is markedly more reasonable than MPQ when it comes to, well, everything.

Stinginess isn't an unfailingly ubiquitous FTP reality, but it most definitely is an MPQ reality.

DBC

Unknown

Drummerboycroy wrote:

Sorry, but still not as true as some would have people believe, no matter how much it is repeated.

Marvel Future Fight (and 1000s of other games, for that matter) says, "Hi!"

For those who have literally never played any other FTP game, this is easy enough to believe. For everyone else? Not so much. Off the top of my head, developers like Halfbrick, Netmarble, and Kiloo, of many, MANY others offer FTP titles that are BIZARRELY generous when seen in the context of MPQ. Are there FTP titles that are essentially ATM machines infused with gambling mechanics slapped onto a "game" skin? Sure, plenty.

Not trying to pick a fight, but every time I see comments like this I feel tempted to undergo the herculean task of listing every single FTP game out there that is markedly more reasonable than MPQ when it comes to, well, everything.

Stinginess isn't an unfailingly ubiquitous FTP reality, but it most definitely is an MPQ reality.

DBC

It's been my experience with every other F2P game I've played.

Only exception is Team Fortress 2, which was P2P to start and Valve's made sure that the only things money can buy are cosmetics, and even then players are getting really darn frustrated with them because, well, they release a lot of things you can buy and are very hard to get without buying things, because your ability to get Free Currency is very slow compared to the open community market.

Other then that? Pokemon Shuffle only gives out premium diamonds as a one time reward to nodes, rarely. you won't get more then one diamond a week. (But, all you can buy with them is the Soft currency and more replays)

Pokemon Rumble World is more generous, in that you're more likely to get a single diamond a day, maybe two or three. But when your next big upgrade is about 90 diamonds, that's not exactly being super generous.

Pangya was like, one of my favorite games period, very fun F2P golf game. Buuuuut then better items and objectively better gear was tied behind their premium currency, and if there's any way to get the premium currency without paying it'd be news to me. (It has been a long while since I've played, though.)

I at least feel like I'm getting a steady trickle of HP playing, even if it is pretty rare. It's hard to earn enough HP to keep up with all the new characters they release, but I also hear a lot of higher level players going "HP isn't the problem. We got way more HP then we need for our covers, we need more ISO instead" which is not something I've heard about a F2P game, needing more of the Soft currency and all.

So yeah, MPQ's generosity feels pretty generous compared to these sorts.

Unknown

colwag wrote:

It's been my experience with every other F2P game I've played.

...

So yeah, MPQ's generosity feels pretty generous compared to these sorts.

I think you need to play a few others. You could even start with just the three developers I've listed, but perhaps I'll go ahead and start on that list, as a public service announcement sort of thing.

DBC

Unknown

Yeah, I don't have a smartphone, and MPQ already is taking up my F2P Slog free time, so I may not be able to hop onto those so quickly. I'd like to hear more about what makes others more generous, and what their moneygrab plans are. Valve's games are "Cosmetic only" which makes me thinks others might copy that, but idk.

And just because there may be other F2P games that exist doesn't mean that MPQ is low on the list of generosity.

I'd be rather shocked if they weren't in the top 25% of generosity. Probably top 10%.

Linkster79

colwag wrote:

Yeah, I don't have a smartphone, and MPQ already is taking up my F2P Slog free time, so I may not be able to hop onto those so quickly. I'd like to hear more about what makes others more generous, and what their moneygrab plans are. Valve's games are "Cosmetic only" which makes me thinks others might copy that, but idk.

And just because there may be other F2P games that exist doesn't mean that MPQ is low on the list of generosity.

I'd be rather shocked if they weren't in the top 25% of generosity. Probably top 10%.

Try The Settlers Online by BlueByte/Ubisoft. It is browser based and free players can compete on as almost an equal footing as cash players. Communication from the Games Master is top notch, it really is one of the very few f2p games I would recommend. I think they are in their 4th year now.

Unknown

Linkster79 wrote:

colwag wrote:

Yeah, I don't have a smartphone, and MPQ already is taking up my F2P Slog free time, so I may not be able to hop onto those so quickly. I'd like to hear more about what makes others more generous, and what their moneygrab plans are. Valve's games are "Cosmetic only" which makes me thinks others might copy that, but idk.

And just because there may be other F2P games that exist doesn't mean that MPQ is low on the list of generosity.

I'd be rather shocked if they weren't in the top 25% of generosity. Probably top 10%.

Try The Settlers Online by BlueByte/Ubisoft. It is browser based and free players can compete on as almost an equal footing as cash players. Communication from the Games Master is top notch, it really is one of the very few f2p games I would recommend. I think they are in their 4th year now.

I listed 3 developers with 10+ games between them alone. I'm fairly certain good examples of fairly built FTP monetization strategies aren't the problem…

DBC

Rob13

I don't understand all the complaining about the anniversary events. They basically tossed us a 4* Cyclops, with a chance for more covers. I found the first 6 rounds relatively easy with 7/8 progressively harder. Looks like every alliance got at least one Cyclops, with many alliances getting 2/3 covers. Don't get me wrong 7/8th rounds were hard, but isn't that the purpose of a game. If it was easy I don't think anybody would play.

Unknown

Rob13 wrote:

I don't understand all the complaining about the anniversary events. They basically tossed us a 4* Cyclops, with a chance for more covers. I found the first 6 rounds relatively easy with 7/8 progressively harder. Looks like every alliance got at least one Cyclops, with many alliances getting 2/3 covers. Don't get me wrong 7/8th rounds were hard, but isn't that the purpose of a game. If it was easy I don't think anybody would play.

As a normal event, it might have gotten a little less hate, but smashing your head against a brick wall repeatedly is not a joyous anniversary. Also, a lot of alliances will not get even the first Cyke cover. The scaling in round six is enough to destroy many rosters. Yes, the competitive alliances can do it, but many (most?) of the casual alliances will fail. Combine that with the terrible anniversary covers, server outages, and grinding, and this is the worst celebration.

Lee T

Rob13 wrote:

Looks like every alliance got at least one Cyclops

I'm willing to bet that you're way off here.

On a second point the complaints are not really about the difficulty or the rewards as much as they are about the enjoyment of the event. There's a lot of top players coming here after completing round 8 commenting that the event was about as fun as having their teeth pulled. They did manage the difficulty, they did get the reward, they didn't have fun.

Dauthi

Personally, I haven't gotten anything new to my roster (other than cyclops that my alliance earned together) and I need about 60% of the current 4*s still. I feel like I am being punished for working hard to max out my Devil Dino last year when odds were good and tokens plentiful.

This just shouldn't happen with competent anniversary prizes or opportunities.

Just want to throw in too how ironic double ISO is when we are spending it to be able to beat Galactus. I feel like I am breaking even at best.

Omega Red

Well, let's see. They have a sale giving away 30% more of game currency. Then we have the Galactus event that is rewarding three four star covers to at least thirty alliances, that's 600 people with full Cyclops starter packs in comparison to the 100 that get them at the standard PVE character release. We can of course criticize the awful design of the boss node but the numbers don't lie, this was easier to achieve than Hulkbuster back in the second run of Ultron, at least in terms of the number of clears and points needed.

I consider both the sale and the Cyclops release as genuine, generous gestures. They are noted and appreciated by me as a customer. I consider it generous when my grocery store gives me say, an extra apple. Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

Dauthi

Omega Red wrote:

Well, let's see. They have a sale giving away 30% more of game currency. Then we have the Galactus event that is rewarding three four star covers to at least thirty alliances, that's 600 people with full Cyclops starter packs in comparison to the 100 that get them at the standard PVE character release. We can of course criticize the awful design of the boss node but the numbers don't lie, this was easier to achieve than Hulkbuster back in the second run of Ultron, at least in terms of the number of clears and points needed.

I consider both the sale and the Cyclops release as genuine, generous gestures. They are noted and appreciated by me as a customer. I consider it generous when my grocery store gives me say, an extra apple. Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

This is only true if the devs actually intend for us to use force quitting. If they patch it out, I can guarantee you only a few (at best) alliances will make it through Galactus.

TheWerebison

Omega Red wrote:

Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

IMHO, they've been very generous with the particular gesture they've been aiming at us. XD

No, in all honesty, I'm glad you feel that way. I'm glad SOMEbody feels that way. Because most of us do not. So maybe they won't cry themselves to sleep, as I know I would if I found out I had let so many people down.

Omega Red

Dauthi wrote:

Omega Red wrote:

Well, let's see. They have a sale giving away 30% more of game currency. Then we have the Galactus event that is rewarding three four star covers to at least thirty alliances, that's 600 people with full Cyclops starter packs in comparison to the 100 that get them at the standard PVE character release. We can of course criticize the awful design of the boss node but the numbers don't lie, this was easier to achieve than Hulkbuster back in the second run of Ultron, at least in terms of the number of clears and points needed.

I consider both the sale and the Cyclops release as genuine, generous gestures. They are noted and appreciated by me as a customer. I consider it generous when my grocery store gives me say, an extra apple. Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

This is only true if the devs actually intend for us to use force quitting. If they patch it out, I can guarantee you only a few (at best) alliances will make it through Galactus.

The fact that the boss node is so poorly designed that force quit becomes a part of strategy does not change the fact that the bar was set lower in comparison to Ultron, as it's evident by the number of alliances that have cleared it so far. Even if force quit is no longer possible for the next run I guarantee you will see it completed by more than two alliances, provided that nothing else gets changed of course.

Omega Red

TheWerebison wrote:

Omega Red wrote:

Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

IMHO, they've been very generous with the particular gesture they've been aiming at us. XD

No, in all honesty, I'm glad you feel that way. I'm glad SOMEbody feels that way. Because most of us do not. So maybe they won't cry themselves to sleep, as I know I would if I found out I had let so many people down.

Maybe I'm weird but when I go dinner to a fancy restaurant that is celebrating its anniversary I don't expect to get a free bottle of wine or anything else of substantial value.

Vhailorx

Omega Red wrote:

Well, let's see. They have a sale giving away 30% more of game currency. Then we have the Galactus event that is rewarding three four star covers to at least thirty alliances, that's 600 people with full Cyclops starter packs in comparison to the 100 that get them at the standard PVE character release. We can of course criticize the awful design of the boss node but the numbers don't lie, this was easier to achieve than Hulkbuster back in the second run of Ultron, at least in terms of the number of clears and points needed.

I consider both the sale and the Cyclops release as genuine, generous gestures. They are noted and appreciated by me as a customer. I consider it generous when my grocery store gives me say, an extra apple. Being generous is about the gesture, not about the value of what is given.

It's not 100 per PVE release, it's 100/1000 per PVE release. so 10% of players (roughly) get 1 cover for each 4* release. Did 10% of players finish round 6 in this even? I have no idea. . . Clearly more top tier alliances made it through round 8 in this event than in Ultron 2, but does that also mean more teams made it through round 6? I dont' know. . .

as for the sale and the cyclops release, they are both fine for what they are, but they aren't generous. The game is designed to make money. Generating HP to give to players basically has a marginal cost of $0 for demiurge. So dropping the (arbitrary) price 30% still leaves them with a nice 70% profit on a $0 dollar cost (yes I know that the game infrastructure costs money, muddying this point a bit).

And releasing new 4*s is their main business model. it generates need for people to buy roster slots (and for some to buy packs/covers to max their new shinies).

Is it generous when MacDonald's sells you a hamburger/fries/drink combo meal? It just seems like a business doing business to me. . .

IMO this debate isn't about the generosity of the event, it's about the inadequate pre-event communication, the less-than-fun (arguably broken) design of galactus, the weaker rewards for this anniversary compared to Year 1, and mostly unsatisfactory post-release communications from demiurge.

Omega Red wrote:

The fact that the boss node is so poorly designed that force quit becomes a part of strategy does not change the fact that the bar was set lower in comparison to Ultron, as it's evident by the number of alliances that have cleared it so far. Even if force quit is no longer possible for the next run I guarantee you will see it completed by more than two alliances, given that nothing else is changed of course.

Your last sentence is speculation. We don't know what the event would have been like without force-quitting, nor do we know what the next event will be. We can only comment on the facts we have (which suggest that many more teams did beat this event than Ultron 2, but that many of them used a borderline exploit for at least part of their run to do so).

Vhailorx

Omega Red wrote:

Maybe I'm weird but when I go dinner to a fancy restaurant that is celebrating its anniversary I don't expect to get a free bottle of wine or anything else of substantial value.

Perhaps not, but when the restaurant invites you to celebrate its anniversary one year, gives out complementary wine, then invites you back the next year saying "we know you had a great time last year, and we really think this year is going to be even better!" is it fair to expect something complementary, wine or otherwise?