Can we please stop having weekend character release PVEs?

Malcrof

With the change in start times.. my 5PM EST is now 4pm.. so work and commute means i start no earlier than 6:30.. plus Halloween Weekend, which is a BIG holiday for my household.. looks like i will be just attempting to get the legendary.

pheregas

Or... They could just stop releasing new characters twice a month (or more) and let us catch up on some covers.

Just a thought.

Philly79

pheregas wrote:

Or... They could just stop releasing new characters twice a month (or more) and let us catch up on some covers.

Just a thought.

upvoting this is a no brainer...there are plenty of covers out there that people need unless you are a whale...so with x-23 out this weekend, the next 5* (Phoenix?, Ghost Rider?) coming in early November, then TAH on 12/2 they are releasing these new chars too fast.

Der_Lex

The frequency of new character releases is not the subject of this thread, though, the fact that all new character releases are done in the Thursday to Monday PvE is. The frequency of releases is an issue worth discussing, but not as a tangent of a thread on another issue that has become very frustrating for at least some players.

Despite the thread title, I don't think anybody wants to do away entirely with 'weekend' PvE's (and absolutely NOBODY wants 7-day release PvE's again). We just want to suggest that, to make things a bit more fair, new character releases could be alternated between the Thursday to Monday and the Monday to Thursday PvE's so both the players with busy weekdays and quiet weekends and players with busy weekends and flexible weekday schedules have one PvE a month that's conveniently timed for them, and one that's less convenient.

JVReal

I think rotating the days the events run is a good idea. I also miss having a day off between them... I really don't like starting a new one immediately following the other one, especially if the reward of the one you just finished is the essential in the one you just started.

I prefer weekend pve's, it just seems more relaxed to me. My week is dictated by my work schedule, morning routine, drop kid off at daycare, go to work, lunch, work, pick kid up from daycare, get home and have dinner with the family.

PVE fits in maybe in the morning during break at work, finish at lunch, which throws my refreshes off. Then clearing in the evening, the ones I did during break I'll squeeze in before dinner, the rest after dinner. Spend time with family, tuck the littlest one into bed, watch some shows with my wife, then go to bed and grind.

The weekends are my schedule. I wake up when I want, and do my full clears, and have 8 hours to do my projects, then hit another clear. I have control. If I want to grind, I grind, if I want to fluff off, I do so. If I have lots of plans over the weekend, oh well, MPQ has to squeeze into an open slot when one is available.

I am all for alternating the releases so everyone has their shot.

Once you drop the feeling that you must hit T10, or T100, and pickup the feeling of enjoying the game... it gets so much better. I find the game fun, so I want my fun to happen on my time, the weekends.

Malcrof

Philly79 wrote:

pheregas wrote:

Or... They could just stop releasing new characters twice a month (or more) and let us catch up on some covers.

Just a thought.

upvoting this is a no brainer...there are plenty of covers out there that people need unless you are a whale...so with x-23 out this weekend, the next 5* (Phoenix?, Ghost Rider?) coming in early November, then TAH on 12/2 they are releasing these new chars too fast.

If they don't release characters constantly, the game will get stale. The same arguments were made when 3*s were being released what seemed like daily for a while.. now many are completely done covering all 3*s... I like the variety.. i could use more roster spots though.

BlackSheep101

I probably play about the same amount on the weekends, but my schedule is off because I'm doing things with the family. I don't intend to try to place for an X-23 token, so it's all the same to me, but I understand the OP's point. To place high in pve, you need to hit a pretty precise schedule, and weekend schedules are much more variable than weekdays.

TxMoose

JVReal wrote:

Once you drop the feeling that you must hit T10, or T100, and pickup the feeling of enjoying the game... it gets so much better. I find the game fun, so I want my fun to happen on my time, the weekends.

so much this... have jumped off any 7-day pves but have been doing one pass on all the nodes for the rewards and it is actually fun to get through the survival nodes, knowing that I don't have to go back and try and grind on them. do them throughout the day - 10 nodes a day. that is a pace that is fun. gets you some tokens and iso. I can only go casually like that on 7-days though. the rest have 2 LTs/week on the line.

NighteyesGrisu

stochasticism wrote:

Seriously, every new character comes out is released over the weekend whether it be a standard PvE or a special event like Galactus Hungers. Can we get a release event that runs from Monday-Thursday for once? Those of us with families or other commitments on the weekend that prevent us from heavily grinding would like a shot at the new characters as well.

I never complained about that because I thought I was the only one in this situation..Guess I was wrong. I have way more time to play during weekdays than on weekends..the ride to work alone is nearly 2 x 1h worth of MPQ time...

stochasticism

Der_Lex wrote:

Despite the thread title, I don't think anybody wants to do away entirely with 'weekend' PvE's (and absolutely NOBODY wants 7-day release PvE's again).

The thread title sucks and misleading. Apologies for that. I did what I could with the provided space. What the real title should be is "Devs, can we please stop making all new character release PVEs run for four days over the weekend?"

BlackSheep101

It also wasn't the best decision in the world to run a new character release event over the weekend daylight savings time ends. Even if everything in the software runs fine, the confusion alone isn't worth the risk.

Crowl

pheregas wrote:

Or... They could just stop releasing new characters twice a month (or more) and let us catch up on some covers.

Just a thought.

What would be nice would be them running more pve events that give out 4* covers to existing character, there should be something between new release events and basic 3* events.

You could do something like:

Week 1 - New release (4 days inc weekend), 3* (3 days)
Week 2 - Existing 4* (7 days)
Week 3 - Repeat new release (4 days not inc weekend), 3* (3 days)
Week 4 - Existing 4* (4 days), 3* (3 days)

Crowl

Malcrof wrote:

Philly79 wrote:

pheregas wrote:

Or... They could just stop releasing new characters twice a month (or more) and let us catch up on some covers.

Just a thought.

upvoting this is a no brainer...there are plenty of covers out there that people need unless you are a whale...so with x-23 out this weekend, the next 5* (Phoenix?, Ghost Rider?) coming in early November, then TAH on 12/2 they are releasing these new chars too fast.

If they don't release characters constantly, the game will get stale. The same arguments were made when 3*s were being released what seemed like daily for a while.. now many are completely done covering all 3*s... I like the variety.. i could use more roster spots though.

While regular new characters are needed on their side of things, there really isn't any need for them to be more than once a month at all. Can you honestly say that the game is significantly improved by having a bunch of unusable characters with 1-4 covers cluttering up people's rosters?

optimus2861

Malcrof wrote:

If they don't release characters constantly, the game will get stale.

False choice. D3 could be developing new events, new side quests, new play modes, new storylines, etc, to keep the game from feeling stale. They choose instead to keep pumping new characters in the game, to keep all we little rats running on these treadmills.

Personally I think the game has felt very stale for a long time now. Rerunning the same story events over, and over, and over, and over again makes it feel like the dev team has completely 'checked out' on anything other than keeping the addicts chasing the new shinies.

Unknown

Tuesday to Thursday has Lightning round. Also the vast majority of working weekdays and the gap is precisely weekend.

GrumpySmurf1002

Malcrof wrote:

If they don't release characters constantly, the game will get stale.

Seriously disagree with this. Character releases can and should still happen of course, but they're not adding much.

Playing the same PvP and especially PvE over and over and over and over again is how it gets stale.

"Hey lets use Bullseye with Jean and HB instead of Squirrel girl" does not add excitement.
"Hey we need to do whatever it is Sentry is doing because no one reads the story anyway" for the 10th time doesn't add excitement.

Gauntlet introduced? Excitement!
Deadpool Daily introduced? Excitement!
Ultron? AntMan release? Galactus? 4*DDQ? Excitement! (followed my massive disappointment in the latter two cases, but I digress).

This game DESPERATELY needs new content and new game modes. Not singular.

Unknown

Malcrof wrote:

If they don't release characters constantly, the game will get stale. The same arguments were made when 3*s were being released what seemed like daily for a while.. now many are completely done covering all 3*s... I like the variety.. i could use more roster spots though.

Only one guy's opinion here, but this is not my experience.

For me, there is nothing more stale than simply releasing character after character, with what amounts to different permutations of the same specials, using the exact same colors, over and over and over...

The constant influx of characters initially lead me to feelings of anxiety (roster slot concerns), through feelings of frustration (concerns about "keeping up"), and ultimately to where I am now, complete apathy.

Hearing about the latest Wolverine, Hulk, or whatever, with the latest grouping of red, blue, purpink, etc. is just mind-numbingly boring, to the point where I actively hope I don't draw a single cover that will sit unused for months, and potentially even years if my current experience is any indication.

New content on the other hand? Ultron, Ant-Man, Galactus, and DDQ (yes, even the 4* that apparently is only for those who already have strong 4*s ) all actually made MPQ a little less stale, if only for a short while...

tl;dr: For me anyway, new characters only magnify the feeling of boredom or staleness, while any actual new content adds momentary jolts of excitement to my MPQ experience.

Edit: Had this one done for a while at work, finally unknowingly hit "submit" and posted it right under Grumpy's, which, while a bit embarrassing, I guess let's me know I'm not alone...

DBC

sc0ville

slidecage wrote:

stochasticism wrote:

Seriously, every new character comes out is released over the weekend whether it be a standard PvE or a special event like Galactus Hungers. Can we get a release event that runs from Monday-Thursday for once? Those of us with families or other commitments on the weekend that prevent us from heavily grinding would like a shot at the new characters as well.

i see no problem with the way it stands now. we have kids we have to pick up and drive around to after school stuff all week so why change it so those who have stuff during the week cant play. Also love how people complain its Halloween weekend yet they had no problem on when events ran thanksgiving, christmas or 4 of july or any other holiday

I don't understand this statement. Did you check through the comments of everyone who complained about the weekend or Halloween conflict and find that these same people approved of the Christas/Thanksgiving events?

optimus2861

Drummerboycroy wrote:

For me, there is nothing more stale than simply releasing character after character, with what amounts to different permutations of the same specials, using the exact same colors, over and over and over...

(...)

New content on the other hand? Ultron, Ant-Man, Galactus, and DDQ (yes, even the 4* that apparently is only for those who already have strong 4*s ) all actually made MPQ a little less stale, if only for a short while...

I almost hate to keep bringing up Future Fight, but the contrast between the games continues to be incredible.

Today FF rolled out a new patch introducing 3 new characters and a limited-time set of missions in which you can earn tokens (which you can redeem for the new characters) and other goodies (including some valuable Level 5 experience chips which I don't think have ever dropped in missions before). There's an Easy mission, a Normal, and a Hard. I can beat the first two but haven't a prayer at the last. No worries; the drop rate on the tokens & goodies is great. Just running the two missions I can beat (5x/day/each) has already let me recruit one of the new characters and earned me a nice haul of goodies. They also modified the daily free login chest to always supply you biometrics (essentially). That's on top of all the usual free login goodies, easy-to-earn crystals, etc.

Meanwhile MPQ rolls out another Wolverine, in another run of a very old Story event, while running same-old, same-old PVP. Nothing else new. The last new event was, "Here's a boss, go kill it, oh whoops we totally made him impossible to kill the first time, dontcha get it, you were supposed to die, you ingrates. Story? What story? Just go kill the boss, get your new shiny."

FF = fresh, new content, very player-friendly across the entire spectrum.

MPQ = stale, rerun content, very harsh to .. well, getting to be harsh on everyone these days.

There's really quite a lot of Stockholm Syndrome going on with veteran players of this game. Take a look at the gaming world outside MPQ. This game is coming up vastly short of its potential.

TheRealJRad

I don't think it's necessarily people have more time to play during the week as opposed to the weekend, but if you're working M-F, you have a good idea of what your schedule is day to day. The weekend is different, as you have a higher chance of something coming up. I know when I can play during my work day (until my new job next week, then I'll settle in a new pattern), but I never know when someone is gonna say "hey, come do this thing Saturday".

slidecage wrote:

stochasticism wrote:

Seriously, every new character comes out is released over the weekend whether it be a standard PvE or a special event like Galactus Hungers. Can we get a release event that runs from Monday-Thursday for once? Those of us with families or other commitments on the weekend that prevent us from heavily grinding would like a shot at the new characters as well.

i see no problem with the way it stands now. we have kids we have to pick up and drive around to after school stuff all week so why change it so those who have stuff during the week cant play. Also love how people complain its Halloween weekend yet they had no problem on when events ran thanksgiving, christmas or 4 of july or any other holiday

I'm fairly sure people were none too pleased with holiday releases. They flat out shouldn't do them.