Well that's just great.... [Duck Season disappointment]

DaveR4470

"Howard the Duck is available for a limited time! He's featured in The Hunt, and available at 4* odds! And to make this super fun, we're giving what every Howard the Duck fan wants: ALMOST TRIPLE THE ODDS FOR A STAR-LORD COVER IN THE TOKENS!!!!!"

/facepalm

I've been around long enough to remember the first anniversary, when you couldn't spit without hitting a Devil Dinosaur cover being handed out. I thought that was the point of "fun" characters -- giving practically everyone a sense of achievement without substantially altering the balance of PvE and PvP.

I guess this is only intended to be "fun" for t100 grinders and whales, though. Sigh.

Moderator edit: made subject line more specific. -DayvBang

Orion

Yeah, I was pretty shocked by that as well. A 0.2% chance? Seriously?!? I was expecting a vault with 1 of each color cover at the very least. And not even a better chance in the 10-pack or 40-pack? That's some major fail right there.

I remember during anniversary Dino was over 10%, wasn't he? Like 12.5%?

firethorne

Yep. They've completely lost touch. I mean, that had been completely obvious since the "You're supposed to lose" anniversary. The thing is, since then, many players have been very outspoken that the dev/player relationship feels antagonistic and has gotten toxic. But they just double down with stuff like reducing odds on "fun" one time things like this. Devil Dino had fifty times better odds than Howard.

I suppose it must be all about the money for them. I don't have any other explanation. So long as they have a few people willing to spend thousands of dollars, they can ignore thousands willing to pay a few dollars.

PeterGibbons316

I don't understand why they are inserting him into DDQ4 the week of his release? Chulk, Miles, Venom, Nova, Gwen, Quake, and Punisher still haven't shown up in DDQ4 yet. I suppose if he isn't going to be added to tokens then more time to earn covers/level him wouldn't help anyway, but still - was expecting to see the other new 4* characters cycle through first.

TxMoose

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

I don't understand why they are inserting him into DDQ4 the week of his release? Chulk, Miles, Venom, Nova, Gwen, Quake, and Punisher still haven't shown up in DDQ4 yet. I suppose if he isn't going to be added to tokens then more time to earn covers/level him wouldn't help anyway, but still - was expecting to see the other new 4* characters cycle through first.

unless its a level 70 bagman, more of the "you're supposed to lose" mentality - nobody will finish it other than the megawhales who'll gobble up enough 40-packs to finish him.

DaveR4470

firethorne wrote:

Yep. They've completely lost touch. I mean, that had been completely obvious since the "You're supposed to lose" anniversary. The thing is, since then, many players have been very outspoken that the dev/player relationship feels antagonistic and has gotten toxic. But they just double down with stuff like reducing odds on "fun" one time things like this. Devil Dino had fifty times better odds than Howard.

I suppose it must be all about the money for them. I don't have any other explanation. So long as they have a few people willing to spend thousands of dollars, they can ignore thousands willing to pay a few dollars.

You can directly tie this all back to the point at which Sega acquired Demiurge, but NOT the rights to MPQ.

Sega Networks did not acquire rights to Demiurge’s popular match-3 puzzle fighting game, but it will support it going forward, though it has yet to be decided on how publishing will be handled.

“It’s business as usual,” Olson said. “They’ve obviously done very well with that game and they have a relationship with D3, the publisher. To clarify, we did not get the actual rights to Marvel [Puzzle Quest] with that acquisition — that’s a separate relationship. But we fully intend to strengthen the title and help it be all that it can be.

If I were Sega, I'd probably want my Demiurge employees to be working harder to build and develop things I DO control, and spend less time on the stuff that's basically maintenance of someone else's IP. Or, to put it another way, is is all about the money for the bosses of the people who used to have the connections with the fans and what they wanted, because they have no potential upside from the game.

Business is harsh sometimes. And so it goes.

AdamMagus

Yep pretty much what DaveR4470 just said, am sure their new IP is getting lots of love

Oh no, wait, they're busy working on their new game instead, maybe 'Marvel Puzzle Quest 2' so it can go toe to toe with 'Avengers Alliance 2'

TheOncomingStorm

DaveR4470 wrote:

"Howard the Duck is available for a limited time! He's featured in The Hunt, and available at 4* odds! And to make this super fun, we're giving what every Howard the Duck fan wants: ALMOST TRIPLE THE ODDS FOR A STAR-LORD COVER IN THE TOKENS!!!!!"

/facepalm

I've been around long enough to remember the first anniversary, when you couldn't spit without hitting a Devil Dinosaur cover being handed out. I thought that was the point of "fun" characters -- giving practically everyone a sense of achievement without substantially altering the balance of PvE and PvP.

I guess this is only intended to be "fun" for t100 grinders and whales, though. Sigh.

What is this "fun" thing of which you speak? I've heard such a term used liberally with other games. I'm not sure how such a term is relevant to the sadist experience that is MPQ.

CaptainFreaky

Yeah - when I saw the 0.2% chance (is that rounded up?) for a Duck cover, I just sighed - clearly Demiurge is either ignorant or asleep at the wheel and just mailing it in on this game. I realize there will be another event PVE with Howard cover available, but they just totally missed the opportunity to spread some good will rather than pander to the whales like on every other character release.

I am really thinking that the spark has left the dev team on this game - or else they are so busy with Civil War event coding that they didn't have time to do Duck Season right - but since they won't ever tell us anything, I can only speculate.

Escape2victory

TxMoose wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

I don't understand why they are inserting him into DDQ4 the week of his release? Chulk, Miles, Venom, Nova, Gwen, Quake, and Punisher still haven't shown up in DDQ4 yet. I suppose if he isn't going to be added to tokens then more time to earn covers/level him wouldn't help anyway, but still - was expecting to see the other new 4* characters cycle through first.

unless its a level 70 bagman, more of the "you're supposed to lose" mentality - nobody will finish it other than the megawhales who'll gobble up enough 40-packs to finish him.

My simple brain fart... go for top 100 in The Hunt to get the invisibility cover Duck, Duck, Loose! Gives you a chance in DDQ straight after. I'll be trying to snipe a bracket in The Hunt...might pay off, might not. Ah, the thrill of a gamble.

TheOncomingStorm

DaveR4470 wrote:

firethorne wrote:

Yep. They've completely lost touch. I mean, that had been completely obvious since the "You're supposed to lose" anniversary. The thing is, since then, many players have been very outspoken that the dev/player relationship feels antagonistic and has gotten toxic. But they just double down with stuff like reducing odds on "fun" one time things like this. Devil Dino had fifty times better odds than Howard.

I suppose it must be all about the money for them. I don't have any other explanation. So long as they have a few people willing to spend thousands of dollars, they can ignore thousands willing to pay a few dollars.

You can directly tie this all back to the point at which Sega acquired Demiurge, but NOT the rights to MPQ.

Sega Networks did not acquire rights to Demiurge’s popular match-3 puzzle fighting game, but it will support it going forward, though it has yet to be decided on how publishing will be handled.

“It’s business as usual,” Olson said. “They’ve obviously done very well with that game and they have a relationship with D3, the publisher. To clarify, we did not get the actual rights to Marvel [Puzzle Quest] with that acquisition — that’s a separate relationship. But we fully intend to strengthen the title and help it be all that it can be.

If I were Sega, I'd probably want my Demiurge employees to be working harder to build and develop things I DO control, and spend less time on the stuff that's basically maintenance of someone else's IP. Or, to put it another way, is is all about the money for the bosses of the people who used to have the connections with the fans and what they wanted, because they have no potential upside from the game.

Business is harsh sometimes. And so it goes.

I agree with other stuff you've written, but this goes a little over the line. Mpq has done a lot, especially lately. They've begin fixing characters, mmr, and pve. We can argue (easily on some points) whether these fixes are an improvement, but they have been putting forth time and effort.

Disregarding whether changes have been good or bad, we've gotten championing, t10 4* rewards in pve, 1300 reward changed to 20 cp, pve nodes with cp, different monsters and wave comps in dpdq, galactus pve, am pve, Venom pve, revamped heroic pve enemies, im40/qs/vision rebalances, character abilities fixed, the usual new character every 2 weeks, etc.

In full disclosure, I still believe the following:

1. Duck Season tokens make me upset. I was looking forward more to the tokens than anything else.

2. Pve rewards need to be progressive. It's more about the time requirement and the ability to play when you want, more than its about fairness.

3. We have a 4* meta (some would say 5*), but we still have the antiquated 3* placement rewards structure.

Vinmarc43

A million things to fix in this game and the Duck events isn't one of them, demiurge can keep it, will never be able to use him in 3 years anyway, NO ISO...and i'm not buying at those price, you got to be cucKoo in the head to do that.
Plus, to lazy to make an original event, patch one up, and ready to go...boring like gum on my shoe.
LAZY, LAZY, LAZY.
PLEASE SHUT THOSE SERVER DOWN !!! , save me from this nonsense.

SnowcaTT

It's just sad that at this point they think "Here, a new 4* character!" is a -good- thing for anyone. The whales don't care about 4*, they are in 5* land. The non-whales don't care much about 4*, they won't have them covered for a long time...and won't have them leveled for longer than that.

New characters aren't exciting, they are just "ho-hum, more of the same". New events, when they are skinned differently but have no different effects/playstyle/reward structure/reward odds aren't exciting either.

GrimSkald

aesthetocyst wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

... Chulk, Miles, Venom, Nova, Gwen, Quake, and Punisher still haven't shown up in DDQ4 yet.....

Don't worry, they will soon enough, assuming the past pattern holds.

https://mpq.gamependium.com/ddq

Dunno how the insertion of the Duck affects the pattern. Bump everyone forward? replace someone outright?

Who the hell knows I'll never clear it either way

I have been keeping an eye on that and am really wondering where they got that information. Personally, I hope it's wrong - why have Quake so damn soon? I have a chance on Miles and Nova, even Gwen if her opponent is relatively forgiving, but I haven't pulled any Quake covers out of tokens yet. Go figure - she's going in this evening.

Ghost Rider was the last one last time, so I presume they kept that order, but unless they have some source of this information I'm not sure I believe what's after that...

Twysta

Quebbster

GrimSkald wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

... Chulk, Miles, Venom, Nova, Gwen, Quake, and Punisher still haven't shown up in DDQ4 yet.....

Don't worry, they will soon enough, assuming the past pattern holds.

https://mpq.gamependium.com/ddq

Dunno how the insertion of the Duck affects the pattern. Bump everyone forward? replace someone outright?

Who the hell knows I'll never clear it either way

I have been keeping an eye on that and am really wondering where they got that information. Personally, I hope it's wrong - why have Quake so damn soon? I have a chance on Miles and Nova, even Gwen if her opponent is relatively forgiving, but I haven't pulled any Quake covers out of tokens yet. Go figure - she's going in this evening.

Ghost Rider was the last one last time, so I presume they kept that order, but unless they have some source of this information I'm not sure I believe what's after that...

I believe anything after Ghost Rider is just their best guess.

Unknown

DaveR4470 wrote:

"Howard the Duck is available for a limited time! He's featured in The Hunt, and available at 4* odds! And to make this super fun, we're giving what every Howard the Duck fan wants: ALMOST TRIPLE THE ODDS FOR A STAR-LORD COVER IN THE TOKENS!!!!!"

/facepalm

I've been around long enough to remember the first anniversary, when you couldn't spit without hitting a Devil Dinosaur cover being handed out. I thought that was the point of "fun" characters -- giving practically everyone a sense of achievement without substantially altering the balance of PvE and PvP.

I guess this is only intended to be "fun" for t100 grinders and whales, though. Sigh.

New characters always have a 0.2% drop rate in the event they're released in & then the percentage increases in their subsequent featured PVE. The downside here is the decision the feature the character so soon in DDQ. Such an undercovered character can't beat any level 270 opponent, almost dooming everyone who gets 1 cover, or even 5, to not be able to get a LT from that. Not that it would matter. It wouldn't be a anyway.

TxMoose

downsouthman1 wrote:

New characters always have a 0.2% drop rate in the event they're released in & then the percentage increases in their subsequent featured PVE. The downside here is the decision the feature the character so soon in DDQ. Such an undercovered character can't beat any level 270 opponent, almost dooming everyone who gets 1 cover, or even 5, to not be able to get a LT from that. Not that it would matter. It wouldn't be a anyway.

not always. this is a special case character (like dino) that we're all assuming will not be in the core rotation (essentials, ddq day, etc). when dino was new (the other, similar character) it was much different. not sure how it was set up, but the phrase "covers dropped like candy" has been used. many players got dino mostly covered. with Howard, best case I get 4-5 covers (unless webbed wonder has some surprises, which is possible). the expectation was set with dino and the next similar character isn't starting off with the same accelerated cover distribution. that's the rub.

BlackSheep101

downsouthman1 wrote:

Such an undercovered character can't beat any level 270 opponent

Characters that can turn invisible have proven to be the exception. The IW and ProfX clashes were both winnable with 1 cover in their invis power. Howard's purple is the most readily available cover in the Hunt. If it's the guaranteed cover in Webbed Wonder as well, most people will have a shot at Howard's ddq LT.

Dragon_Nexus

It's funny, IceIX used to bug me, he sometimes came across as kinda smug for a community liason.

But he would have replied to this thread by now and he'd have said something about speaking to the dev team. And chances are something would have happened in the end. Remember the god-awful odds of getting anything useful in the anniversary tokens? Remember the massive player/developer disconnect with Galactus? We complained. IceIX came back with a statement that blew everyone's minds with how out of touch it was...but he listened, he took it all on board and he kept an open dialogue with everyone.

The result was token odds improved, Galactus was improved and things were better by the end than at the start.

I like David here, but if he's feeding things back to the devs he stays far too quiet about it. Communication is always key with your community. Even if all you say is "We've taken this on board and we're re-assessing things. We'll get back to you soon." that's something. We don't need immediate answers, we'd just like to know that we're being heard and not just shouting into the wind.

TLCstormz

And if he is told NOT to speak on the situation, until given permission.......?