I feel compelled to ask...(PvE story related)

Dragon_Nexus

This new story mode...there's no new feature to it. Nothing.

Now, I'm not complaining about that, the exact opposite in fact. My point is simply...why has it taken this long to make it? This PvE functions *exactly* like Enemy of the State which came out Dec 2014. That was literally the last generic PvE event we've had. I'm not really counting Ultron and Galactus since they function completely differently to things like The Hunt or Hulk or Rocket & Groot, etc, so it's completely understandable why those take time to make.

So here we are with a brand new story and the only thing that was needed to make this was new background art, some speech bubbles, node descriptions and some enemy choices for the nodes along with some scaling and such.

A question I've been posing for about a year now is...why does new PvE content take so long? I postulated that people weren't expecting a big new feature with every PvE, nor do we necessarily need a new character to fit into that Pve, I mean sure it's nice to have, but simply seeing new content and fighting something more interesting than Daken, Ares, Moonstone, Bullseye, Yelena, Juggernaut and Venom over and over would be a God send.

And here we are, with a new event that's exactly that. So now the ultimate question...why did it take so long? This is all I'd ever wanted, that's for sure. Just...a new story with some new enemies and such. Also yeah, it would be nice if some more characters got a speaking part, too.

GothicKratos

If we're being completely realistic here it's probably content rights. I doubt Marvel hands out rights to their story content willy-nilly.

ClydeFrog76

GothicKratos wrote:

If we're being completely realistic here it's probably content rights. I doubt Marvel hands out rights to their story content willy-nilly.

I'm not buying it.

fmftint

They've answered this in the past and it's simple, people don't PAY for new stories. They pay for new characters and roster slots

Mawtful

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

If we're being completely realistic here it's probably content rights. I doubt Marvel hands out rights to their story content willy-nilly.

I'm not buying it.

Agree. Marvel's really keen to use f2p games as a means for cross-promoting their latest and greatest. I think every single Marvel game ran Ultron themed content while Avengers 2 was in cinemas. Remember when MPQ added Kingpin in time for Daredevil on Netflix? Or when MPQ was the first game to feature Jane Foster's Thor? or Totally Awesome Hulk?

I will guarantee that Marvel is not holding back Demiurge from creating an "All-New All-Different Avengers" event. That's not to say that Marvel aren't restricting what content is available, but rather that there are probably a tonne of stories that could have been done in the last 12 months that Marvel would have been very happy to support.

To the matter of Hearts of Darkness; so far I've been very unimpressed with the writing. I didn't exactly go in with high expectations, but I managed to be disappointed anyway. And to the matter of why this is the first new story content in a year? Well, that one's easy: money. New content doesn't make money, and we've all been happily playing recycled content for 12 months. If you've already got your players hooked up to a Skinner Box and logging in daily when you're not providing content, why would you pay money to create new content? You wouldn't, and they didn't. It's likely a calculated step in retaining enough of the player base. I hit 730 days just after the 2nd anniversary and since then I've been playing less and less each week. Sometimes just hitting the first prologue node, and more than a few days I missed completely, but HoD has brought me back.

DFiPL

fmftint wrote:

They've answered this in the past and it's simple, people don't PAY for new stories. They pay for new characters and roster slots

And the way you fix that, potentially, is by taking a page from Hulk/Prodigal and having the final node of new story content (or at least a later node) reward a cover. Maybe it's the "worst" cover, the one intended to be most common, whatever. But now you have both engagement with the new content AND people paying money for a roster slot to roster the new character.

Do whatever you're going to do on individual and alliance finishes. One cover extra for T100 alliances with members who are already finishing placed highly and then chasing PVP is probably not going to make much difference. But for people on the lower end, they may be enticed to buy a roster slot for that character, and they will be more interested in playing future new content as well.

New content helps with retention, especially if you introduce new mechanics with that content, but even just in general, even if it's the same ol' thing with a reskin, it will feel, at least for that initial run, somewhat "fresh" because you don't know what to expect from it yet.

notamutant

I said it in my youtube video for the first part of the event. It takes a long time to come up with those punny names for each node.

wirius

Its very easy to ask and point out, "Why not make the game like X?" I'm sure the developers have all the ideas in the world needed to make MPQ the perfect puzzle quest game. But making the perfect game is not necessarily good business sense. What is smarter, investing 1k and getting a 100k return or investing 20k and getting a 110k return? Even if the latter game is "better" "more fun" etc., it actually makes less money then the less perfect and cheaper game.

Did you stop playing because PvE's were recycled? Nope. Then as a business, you don't care. Want to change that? Make your own puzzle quest game. Once you realize you can make a less than perfect game and make a paycheck of half a million dollars, or make a perfect game and make a paycheck of 60,000 dollars, your vision of the perfect game might be compromised.

Unknown

two thing that i notice, story no longer involve shield/dark avenger, and the enemy it just "the hood" and "the goon".

can't complain, that do just fine, im really enjoying it.

Nick441234

fmftint wrote:

They've answered this in the past and it's simple, people don't PAY for new stories. They pay for new characters and roster slots

Yes, but if people get bored, they stop playing.

I'm sick to death of fighting Jugs, Venom, Bullseye and Ares. If people quit the game, it doesn't matter how many characters they make for it.

puppychow

I thought it was interesting that the survivals mixed hand goons and mafia goons. there was some new artwork involving GR. Didn't really pay attention to the conversations. *shrugs*

Dragon_Nexus

nick_chicane wrote:

fmftint wrote:

They've answered this in the past and it's simple, people don't PAY for new stories. They pay for new characters and roster slots

Yes, but if people get bored, they stop playing.

I'm sick to death of fighting Jugs, Venom, Bullseye and Ares. If people quit the game, it doesn't matter how many characters they make for it.

Pretty much this.
I don't even play PvE these days unless there's a new character. I'd play this new one regardless simply because it's something new and different.

I don't even really buy the idea that this cost so much money to create. Sure, the artist would need paying for coming up with new background art for the event and you'd be paying some writers to come up with the fistful of dialogue and node descriptions, but there can't be any new code in here, it uses all of the existing PvE formats.

If it's a case of Marvel being stingey with the stories they want to give out then I wonder what Marvel's thinking. Why would keeping the PvE stagnent for a year, aside from new covers, be in their interests?

XandorXerxes

So, there's a few more considerations to put in place than just re-skinning an old event. I don't think it's an issue with Marvel - I assume the Marvel IPs are licensed for the game already.

1) Other projects. Even if it was just re-skinning an old event, if you've got limited resources (time, developers) and those are already stretched thin doing other projects (new characters), there could quite literally be 0 time to put to it. Given how much more time we've asked the developers to put into balancing characters before release and other things that have come out (ultron, galactus, 4* DPD namely) I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case. Just look at the story we did get - "chase the hood!" "He's gone." "After him!" "He's gone again." I just came to the forums to point out that Wolverine threatening a good with letting the Punisher at him for 5 minutes doesn't make him a "good cop."

2) Balance. Lots of people have talked about how much they hate 395 Juggernaut or the Dark Avengers. Putting new groups together and using different characters requires the developers to put more thought into it than "let's slap a few nodes together," because otherwise we'd end up with level 395 missions that are almost as bad. How bad would the reaction be if we all stumbled into some random OP node?

Mawtful

Slightly off topic, just some story speculation that we'll find it the answer to really soon, so I don't think it needs it's own thread, but:

I think it's obvious that we're about to get a new non-playable villain introduced in the 3rd sub. Is this going to be Dormammu? Lucifer? Whatever other hellish baddies exist in Ghost Rider stories (I'm really not familiar).

Der_Lex

The main enemy in the Hearts of Darkness comics storyline was Mephisto's son Blackheart, and I believe the big M showed up himself in the end as well. The fact that the Underworld is mentioned by name suggests their involvement as well, because the only other villains with ties to that are Dracula and Azazel, afaik, and those don't seem likely.

snlf25

nick_chicane wrote:

fmftint wrote:

They've answered this in the past and it's simple, people don't PAY for new stories. They pay for new characters and roster slots

Yes, but if people get bored, they stop playing.

I'm sick to death of fighting Jugs, Venom, Bullseye and Ares. If people quit the game, it doesn't matter how many characters they make for it.

I so very much second this completely with every fiber of my being. I am damned sick of fighting the same events with the damned Dark Avengers. Half the time I can't even force myself to play. I will never play The Hunt again, not even for my last Scarlet Witch or a purple Iron Fist. I'd rather fall into a septic tank and drown in **** and die than ever play some of these PvEs again. Do not underestimate how much the repetitiveness and absolute drudgery of facing the same opponents over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again drags down the experience and fun of playing Marvel Puzzle Quest.

nick, I would hire shifts of day laborers to thumbs up your post 24 hours a day for the next year if I could.

Mawtful

After finishing all the missions in the 3rd sub, I think I'm ready to make a verdict on HoD as one of the worst PvEs. Unless they start giving out guaranteed covers, any reruns will be a nice break.

Edit: spelling.

GothicKratos

Mawtful wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

If we're being completely realistic here it's probably content rights. I doubt Marvel hands out rights to their story content willy-nilly.

Agree. Marvel's really keen to use f2p games as a means for cross-promoting their latest and greatest. I think every single Marvel game ran Ultron themed content while Avengers 2 was in cinemas. Remember when MPQ added Kingpin in time for Daredevil on Netflix? Or when MPQ was the first game to feature Jane Foster's Thor? or Totally Awesome Hulk?

You're right, but you're wrong. Remember when Ultron was about to come out -- remember that literally every Marvel game ever made something to do with Ultron even a Marvel pinball game. You will never convince me that was not forced by Marvel in a thousand years. I know what those licensing contracts look like and they all always say when the licensee says jump you jump and then ask how high. The same thing likely happened for all those other guys on a smaller level on most Marvel games -- or they were "incentivized" by Marvel if they advertised their new business ventures.

Sidenote: I love how everyone was happy to **** and moan those all those characters (Luke, Fist, Squirrel Girl, Kingpin, JaneThor, etc) were was consumer drudgery to dredge up sales and that MPQ was the slime of the Earth for doing such things, but now that it's time to say it was all a marketing spiel you're not buying it. Coy.

Mawtful wrote:

I will guarantee that Marvel is not holding back Demiurge from creating an "All-New All-Different Avengers" event. That's not to say that Marvel aren't restricting what content is available, but rather that there are probably a tonne of stories that could have been done in the last 12 months that Marvel would have been very happy to support.

I guarantee you that anything that is anywhere near current costs and arm and a leg to license (unless Marvel is forcing you to put it out for advertisement purposes, then I'm sure it only costs and arm or a leg). The last thing Marvel is is a charity. That's why we see things like an old Sentry storyline, an old Ghost Rider storyline, or an old Wolverine storyline whenever we get a 'new' piece of PvE content.

Will and crew would probably [/i]love[/i] to make a Secret Wars event, but I can't even begin to fathom the pricetag on the license for that. Besides that, good luck convincing the bean counters that a new Secret Wars PvE would make enough additional money over a 'new' Ghost Rider story that it would break even - let alone justify - paying that additional cost. People love Ghost Rider. People would play for him even if they made a PvE full of Hood/Feeder nodes.

dan54321

Count me among those who feel that new stories = retention = more money for Demiurge.

I'm very happy to see a new story. Regarding the writing, I actually enjoyed it. It was severely limited by only introducing two new characters and recycling almost all the opponents from other storylines, but I didn't feel like it was just endless taunting interspersed with fights, which seems to be the usual pattern.

Would it really have cost so much to just introduce a couple new baddies, though, like some imps or demons or something? All you need is just a little new artwork. Probably cost $1000 to pay a freelance artist. $200 to license some new sound effects. Some minimal programming for some CDs that cause AoE or straight damage. Seems like it would be pretty cheap and worth it in terms of retention.

ClydeFrog76

I'm immensely disappointed. Sadly, I'm not surprised.

The last sub had SO much potential to do something cool and new, but instead they went the lazy route - again - and used it as an excuse to create a Simulator-lite. It would've sucked less if perhaps we all got our own Rider at the end, but of course that was too much to hope for.

We waited a year for this...a whole freakin' year. The game deserves better, the players deserve better. I'm just so damn bored of it all, even though I love collecting the characters and the core mechanics.

Time for another break methinks; after the lameness that was the second anniversary and this, it's blatantly apparent that my time could be better spent elsewhere. I'll dip into PVPs when the urge strikes and DPQ when I need a cover (rare thesedays), but other than that I'm done.

notamutant

I actually wish they hadn't made a new story event if they were going to run it this way. There should never be a level with repeatable survivor nodes, unless you reduce the number of other repeatable nodes by each round the survivor node has. The second level had I believe 11 (!!!) repeatable nodes, including 3 (!!!) survivor nodes. It took me over an hour just to grind those 3 nodes under 100. Then I still had 8 more nodes to grind down. I ran out of time, and spent almost 3 hours grinding to still not come close to finishing. A part of that is **** scaling, but most of that was poor design. No reason they should make a level take more than an hour and a half to grind to 1.