Devs, read your reviews. Google Play Apps.

Unknown

Just had a look at the latest Marvel Puzzle Quest reviews on Google Apps and wonder if the developers of this game take in and digest any comments that are freely contributed to inform people how this cash cow of a game is progressing.

They developers take no notice to any of these comments and appear to churn out ready made appeasement guff of " we are trying to make the game fun and a challenge for everyone".

I wonder how many paying gamers they have lost since their last update.

This is a Forum and we should use it to tell them to improve the game and maybe, just maybe, someone in their ivory tower will sit up and take notice before it's too late.

Unknown

Many tried.

Unknown

blackheart5 wrote:

This is a Forum and we should use it to tell them to improve the game and maybe, just maybe, someone in their ivory tower will sit up and take notice before it's too late.

I guess most of us who tried already recognized that it is not worth the effort, comments are just ignored and the game just follows its on original direction. Rarely we get a bone dropped (the few ones in long time is respec that was a 3 hour task delivered after several months, confirmation on some purchases and time sync.

The company can't even deliver what they admitted as problem and promised to fix, and is really a no-brainer: clear communication and advance announcement. See the latest patch, while we had the preview long ago they could not be bothered to post the final version a few days before deployment, neither the time of deployment.

If posting a line "R48 goes live next Monday evening" is too much what do you expect on real issues -- and the game have a deal of them?

The reviews certainly reflect the state correctly, they were positive while the game was "preview" then as soon as that period ended it started its steep descent. That keeps going.

NorthernPolarity

So I'm reading the reviews and I'm just seeing people are complaining about the skip tax and removed boosts and the usual "this game is dying and if the devs don't do something about it, its over". I don't really see what the fuss is about: the extra 30 iso bonus you get from not skipping should more than compensate the number of skips you do, and the boost thing is just a transitional phase so that the players can have more flexibility in the amount of boosts that they want to use. The scaling granted could still use some work, but the devs have been improving them with each event iteration, and they'll get it right eventually. The DAU for the game has only been increasing over time, so I doubt we'll be seeing the end of this game as so many of you have proclaimed.

Unknown

People always cry about things in reviews. If you go by what people said, Diablo 3 is dying too even though it's making a ton of money.

Mind you, I'm not saying these feedback is meaningless (I think Diablo 3 could listen to the feedback), but it's easy to find 'the sky is falling' posts in any game.

Unknown

Pretty sure I've seen them say that they don't look at their reviews. Or, as they put it, they prefer to look at the forums. Both basically mean the ignore the reviewers. Maybe if we could review on here...

Demiurge_Will

We read the reviews, and they definitely inform what we do.

Unknown

this post is interesting because it says what ive been thinking ever since thor got nerfed... we all tell them how much what theyre doing sucks and hurts.the average player then it just gets forgetten the way they know it will and they keep screwing over everyone who has played since it was "preview edition". they completely took away any strategy we had.. i really cant figure out what direction these guys are trying to take the game but every time it updates im blown away by much they keep ruining things. THE GAME WAS GREAT THE WAY IT WAS! STOP CHANGING IT SO MUCH!!

Verno5x

murphys938 wrote:

this post is interesting because it says what ive been thinking ever since thor got nerfed... we all tell them how much what theyre doing sucks and hurts.the average player then it just gets forgetten the way they know it will and they keep screwing over everyone who has played since it was "preview edition". they completely took away any strategy we had.. i really cant figure out what direction these guys are trying to take the game but every time it updates im blown away by much they keep ruining things. THE GAME WAS GREAT THE WAY IT WAS! STOP CHANGING IT SO MUCH!!

You have to remember that this forum and the reviews as less that 1% of the total people playing the game. While you in particular may not like the direction the game is going Demiurge is likely pulling a lot of stats in the background which are informing their decisions. Every single game gets the awful reviews whenever they change something that some peopled don't like. Don't forget that the vocal minority is very loud in online games. I personally enjoy the game and think that the direction it's going is fine.

Unknown

Are you employed by Demiurge by any chance?

It is well known that companies with guff reviews post A1 reviews about their own games.

You my friend are in the minority. Go read the reviews!

And, I am not the only person, sorry, paying customer that does not like the way this game is developing.

This topic has hit a nerve with those at Demiurge if you care to read the replies.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We read the reviews, and they definitely inform what we do.

So, any word about the hefty unannounced stealth price increase to boosts that was part of the last patch? Are we safe to assume that this is actually an unfortunate misconfiguration and that players should contact support to get a refund for the incorrectly deducted ISO amount?

Unknown

I would like to point out a few things...

The nerfs to Rag and the rebalance of Thorverine had a lot to do with forum outrage. Originally, D3 had just proposed a skip tax to discourage cherry-picking, but on release that was changed to a progressively decreasing bonus leading into a skip tax (the bonus being part of the eventual implementation that was repeatedly asked for on the forums). The outrage over the most recent boost change is frankly baffling, as their stated goal has been to leave pricing unchanged while allowing for larger stack size and boost stacking.

Have they done some things that seem wrong-headed? Absolutely. Shields were a fantastic addition to the game, but hiding shielded players kind of negates their value in terms of allowing us to reach progressives. Communication could always be better (but it's definitely improved). PVE scaling is wonky, and MMR is still not great. But all of the things in this paragraph don't erase all of the things in paragraph 1, and the general trend in patching toward addressing player concerns.

This game is what, 6 months old? How quickly do you expect them to shape it?

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

I would like to point out a few things...

The nerfs to Rag and the rebalance of Thorverine had a lot to do with forum outrage. Originally, D3 had just proposed a skip tax to discourage cherry-picking, but on release that was changed to a progressively decreasing bonus leading into a skip tax (the bonus being part of the eventual implementation that was repeatedly asked for on the forums). The outrage over the most recent boost change is frankly baffling, as their stated goal has been to leave pricing unchanged while allowing for larger stack size and boost stacking.

Have they done some things that seem wrong-headed? Absolutely. Shields were a fantastic addition to the game, but hiding shielded players kind of negates their value in terms of allowing us to reach progressives. Communication could always be better (but it's definitely improved). PVE scaling is wonky, and MMR is still not great. But all of the things in this paragraph don't erase all of the things in paragraph 1, and the general trend in patching toward addressing player concerns.

This game is what, 6 months old? How quickly do you expect them to shape it?

Sorry, but shields were not a fantastic addition to the game. It's just another another way to squeeze you out of more $$$ and HP. It was just a stupid band aid they threw out there instead of addressing the actual problem: broken matchmaking. I've said this before, but the idea behind shields is a good one, but what happens when you shield? YOU STOP PLAYING! You want to play the game, right?

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

The outrage over the most recent boost change is frankly baffling, as their stated goal has been to leave pricing unchanged while allowing for larger stack size and boost stacking.

What really irks me is the lack of any official response at all. For players hidden price increases are a very sensitive topic, especially after they pulled this trick before and promised to not do it again. Players expect a response. They know that players expect a response. Players know that they know that players expect a response. But instead of handling this in a professional way they just act like kids having been caught yet again with their hand in the cookie jar, they hide under their bed waiting for the storm to blow over. There's a message to the customers here, it says that the game will be shut down without prior notice once payments no longer meet expectations.

Unknown

The fantastic thing about shields is that they injected additional points into the competition. You could safeguard your own current ranking while allowing players below you to climb higher in the progressives. They didn't stay fantastic for very long, mind you, but that initial change (the ability to safeguard your score and the addition of extra points into the tournament) was great. Every modification to shields that followed was bad.

What do the new boosts cost? I haven't purchased any yet.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

The fantastic thing about shields is that they injected additional points into the competition.

I think that lasted one week.

I rarely use a shields. I just finished the Fresh Cut event the other day and finished 5th without using any shields, but I would have used my last 75 HP if I thought I was going to miss out on getting Magneto Purple/Blue/Red.

Unknown

Hence the past tense. They were a fantastic addition to the game.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

What do the new boosts cost? I haven't purchased any yet.

Costs are mostly the same, the overall amount you receive got reduced. For 200 ISO you used to get 3 of those +3 to two color stockpiles, now you get 5 +1 to two color stockpiles. Roughly half of what you got before.

NorthernPolarity

Moon 17 wrote:

Hence the past tense. They were a fantastic addition to the game.

I don't remember them being as great as you thought they were. The main thing I remember from that week was that PvP devolved to people farming shielded opponents for points and leapfrogging up to 2400 points. While this made progression rewards were actually obtainable, grinding 2400 points took several hours, and wasn't very fun at all. I think the current system is better just because you don't have to grind nearly as much in order to do well, but they need to make progression rewards more obtainable (1k points for a 3* cover would be good).

mischiefmaker

Yup, agreed. A lot of those tournaments required playing for 2-4 hours in the late night to get to those high progression rewards. I like the current setup way better.

I think 900 points for a 3* cover and 1100 for a 4* is reasonably attainable. I'm pretty sure I could get to 900 if I worked at it, and possibly 1100 if I put in a lot of effort and/or shields (and since the breakeven point is 30+ 3-hour shields, that's perfectly reasonable). 1000/1200 might be doable too. Part of the problem right now is that the 4* covers aren't good enough to warrant that kind of effort.

wirius

Its because people are self-entitled whiners who don't think about the game health as a whole, and only their selfish little world view. I ignore most of them, and I'm sure the very intelligent devs do too.