How do the players feel about the game?

El Satanno

No, this isn't a poll, nor actually a question that I'm looking for a response to. Rather, I was reading this article about recent developments in Pokemon Go and the backlash from a small but vocal segment of the player base. The thing that really struck me was about 3/4 of the way down, where the author says "...how silly it can be to judge fan reception based on the amount of downvotes something receives, and a one-star review of this kind is more or less a downvote. But still, not many people have rated the app at all, and of those that did the vast majority are reacting with a sort of passionate anger. Which, as we know, is as much of an indication of engagement as passion. The players who gave the app a single star care very deeply about the game and how it's being changed. They likely don't want to hurt the game as much as they want to be heard."

Doesn't this just mirror what goes on around here? Speaking personally and from a look at the various polls and threads running around here, it screams those last two lines, loud and clear.

Food for thought, I think.

The Herald

The game, at its core, is good.

We aren't getting what we are asking for.

We are getting things we are NOT asking for (if not actively requesting a break from).

While I'm a relative newbie, the state of the game appears to historically be the downturn before the 3* tier was finished and a cover could always be won per day. So it's frustrating now but there's historical precedent for a golden age to about to burst onto the scone.

TL:DR good game gone stale, but we hope for the best.

(SPG edit)

SnowcaTT

I'm sure I come off as a complainer/whiner often on the forums...but it is because I -DO- care. This game is a fun game! It could be a great game! It could be a great game while the devs still get their money!

I, and many others who care about the game, try to give helpful suggestions of what players are looking for and how the game could trend. I have seen very little evidence that any of these suggestions are even acknowledged, much less taken up....but I still have hope. That hope dwindles every passing season.

Linkster79

I'm nearly the same as Snowcatt with the exception that I stopped playing entirely. Numerous times in the past the previous admins stated they do not care about app store ratings and the current admins only seem to care about player engagement. My way of showing my displeasure about the current state of the game is to hit them where they seem to care. Don't get me wrong in assuming I think the game is terrible, it isn't and at its core it is an enjoyable match 3 game tied to a licence I like but it has grown stagnant and nobody likes to drink from a stagnant pond. My match 3 time now is spent on Star Trek Timelines, another licence I have loved since I was a small child as it has much more single player and less competitive content and until a new game feature is announced that screams "play me again" that is where I shall remain .

firethorne

I'd rank things similarly to some of the other posts here. This is a game that was once amazing, and is now something less.

There are many common themes in the community echoed again and again on changes that would make the game dramatically better, but they are consistently ignored. The relationship between players and devs feel almost adversarial as a result. Communication is not what it once was, and in the instances it still occurs, it feels more like they're talking at us, not with us.

As for the gameplay, the match 3 mechanics and strategy is solid, but the layer of constant new character after new character we don't have the ISO to level is becoming tedious. My roster keeps getting larger, but it doesn't feel like it has gotten any better in over a year. And for the few that do manage to raise their levels, they just end up posting screens of how insane the enemy levels scale to match, so there seems like little point in advancing. It seems like they've missed what actually make that fun in other games. The sense of progression is stunted.

We love the game. We hope it can reclaim what it was. But, we are growing skeptical that it will happen.

The Herald

firethorne wrote:

I'd rank things similarly to some of the other posts here. This is a game that was once amazing, and is now something less.

There are many common themes in the community echoed again and again on changes that would make the game dramatically better, but they are consistently ignored. The relationship between players and devs feel almost adversarial as a result. Communication is not what it once was, and in the instances it still occurs, it feels more like they're talking at us, not with us.

As for the gameplay, the match 3 mechanics and strategy is solid, but the layer of constant new character after new character we don't have the ISO to level is becoming tedious. My roster keeps getting larger, but it doesn't feel like it has gotten any better in over a year. And for the few that do manage to raise their levels, they just end up posting screens of how insane the enemy levels scale to match, so there seems like little point in advancing. It seems like they've missed what actually make that fun in other games. The sense of progression is stunted.

We love the game. We hope it can reclaim what it was. But, we are growing skeptical that it will happen.

Is there even dedicated Marvel Puzzle Quest staff? Or are they just **** out new characters in between working on their newer IP?

carrion_pigeons

This game has a TON of potential. I look at this game and see new ways it could be really fun every single day I play. It's a great premise with an interesting implementation, and I really, really want to like it more than I do.

Seeing that potential squandered makes me sad. The lack of features and constant money-grubbing have turned this game from potentially one of the all-time greats into a depressing pile of sludge.

If the budget of this game was tripled, and it was given some ambitious programmers and designers with a motivation to make the game as fun as it could be, I am convinced the game would take off in a way that would absolutely shock everyone. But I just don't have the faith anymore that there's anyone at demiurge who wants to try.

Linkster79

The budget doesn't necessarily need to be tripled, just redistributed from character design and into R&D. Almost since launch some players have been clamouring for something, anything (except locking it out) to be done to the Prologue section, that could be a good and inexpensive place to start.

For me Marvel Puzzle Quest needs something that isn't competitive and a bit more relaxed adding to it.

wirius

Best match 3 around. Worst reward versus effort return. Not sure why its gotten WORSE over the years when it should have gotten better.

Vohnkar

I like the game a lot, love to play with marvel heroes/skills. the only thing that bothers me and it always had is the scaling and kind of bad reward system. You get punished for lvling and increasing your roster instead of getting a feeling of advance you feel like you are far worse with a full 166+ roster than 94s... thats kind of sad and frustrating.

JamesV

I like the game, but what is beginning way on me is the time commitment. I feel like I'm reaching a point where time to progress isn't worth the amount of time it takes to play it. This applies to all levels of the game. The randomization of deadpool daily for instance made deadpool daily take longer which in turn has made it feel more like a chore than the stagnant deadpool daily did.

I'm just reaching that point where the amount of time I need to be on my phone playing this game just feels ridiculous, so my engagement is dropping. I stopped caring about hitting a 1000 in PVP regularly and now I can't even find the enthusiasm to play the mode at all, you know?

It's like I like the game, but the clinginess is starting to make me want to see other games.

SnowcaTT

JamesV wrote:

I like the game, but what is beginning way on me is the time commitment. I feel like I'm reaching a point where time to progress isn't worth the amount of time it takes to play it.

It's like I like the game, but the clinginess is starting to make me want to see other games.

I've been playing lots of other games in the meantime, and it shows you just how slow/stingey the progression/rewards are. In the last 3-4 weeks I've beaten all of Skyrim. Before that I ran deep into Diablo 3. Before that, it was Arkham Knight, and before that Dragon Age Inquisition (sprinkled with lots of indies in between).

All of those I paid for. All of them were great (and that's why I play them a couple years after they are done, to get the bugs out). All of them left me wanting more when I set them down, and excited again.

All of them brought me a sense of purpose going into them, and a sense of accomplishment a couple hours (and certainly by the end of the day!) into play.

Compared to MPQ: where after a day of play I might be 1/5th of the way to another LT which brings me a 1/10th chance of a 5* of which there are enough that it is possible it won't be useful for years to come. After a day of play I might be 1/20th of the way to maxing another character. That sense of progression from day to day that you got when it was 3* characters is gone - and the sense that progression is coming eventually is largely missing thanks to RNG as well.

jobob

I wouldn't spend money and waste time posting on forums if I didn't care about the game.

You take a look at the people who do the criticizing, and it's a long of long-term players and forum members. It's completely different from simply being a naysayer who just tried the game, didn't like it, and moved on.

I truly believe that the OVERWHELMING majority of criticism on this board comes from a good place- people who enjoy this game, want it to succeed, but believe it can (and in most cases, should) be better than it is.

Polares

wirius wrote:

Best match 3 around. Worst reward versus effort return. Not sure why its gotten WORSE over the years when it should have gotten better.

This is a great summary. Game mechanics are great, progression is really hard. Too much work needed for everything.

Then if they fixed that, scaling (which is a problem that has plagued this game since the beginning), and added some other type of game (something different than PvP and PvE), the game would probably be one of the best ones on any phone store!

PS: We should always have some Gauntlet type event running, I dont understand why are these run like normal PvEs...

WEBGAS

jobob wrote:

I wouldn't spend money and waste time posting on forums if I didn't care about the game.

You take a look at the people who do the criticizing, and it's a long of long-term players and forum members. It's completely different from simply being a naysayer who just tried the game, didn't like it, and moved on.

I truly believe that the OVERWHELMING majority of criticism on this board comes from a good place- people who enjoy this game, want it to succeed, but believe it can (and in most cases, should) be better than it is.

And this is the saddest thing....we all feel like the boy who cried wolf
...we are crying our fears that the game is going downspiral and the only thing the Devs are doing is keep releasing new characters...

Today a fifth member of my alliance has gone....5 veterans with over 650 days of gameplay decided to quit in the last few weeks...this should trigger an alarm bell for the Devs...but I have a bad feeling: who cares?

Bowgentle

WEBGAS wrote:

Today a fifth member of my alliance has gone....5 veterans with over 650 days of gameplay decided to quit in the last few weeks...this should trigger an alarm bell for the Devs...but I have a bad feeling: who cares?

Were those people ever going to spend money again?
If the answer is no, then the devs absolutely should not care.

The game is supposed to make money, not provide free entertainment.

MrCrowley

I think one of the things that really really would help would be to get another PVP mode that runs concurrently with the "basic" PVP. IF you joint one, you cant join the other. Have separate rewards for both. The basic one would focus on 3s and 4s rewards and the other one could give out more cp, and perhaps more 5s, or perhaps a legendary token.

This would help draw out the big boys from the normal PVP, making the basic one more reasonable for the newbies. It would allow newbies to rank in top 100 to get them the 3s covers they need for progress. Now it is very hard for a newbie to get rank rewards.

El Satanno

Bowgentle wrote:

Were those people ever going to spend money again?
If the answer is no, then the devs absolutely should not care.

The game is supposed to make money, not provide free entertainment.

For as much as I want to agree with your splendid grumpiness, Bow, I'm going to chastise you for a narrow perspective. Spending is surely important for obvious reasons, but goodwill of active customers is equally important. Word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of advertising out there. The last thing you want your players telling newcomers or posting online is "Yeah, it's okay but it sucks after you play for a while," or worse still "They don't give a **** what we want to see in the game."

Also, you're not in Django anymore, you jerk. Stop advertising for them already.

WEBGAS

Bowgentle wrote:

WEBGAS wrote:

Today a fifth member of my alliance has gone....5 veterans with over 650 days of gameplay decided to quit in the last few weeks...this should trigger an alarm bell for the Devs...but I have a bad feeling: who cares?

Were those people ever going to spend money again?
If the answer is no, then the devs absolutely should not care.

The game is supposed to make money, not provide free entertainment.

Those players usually spent money and probably would have spent more if entertained enough......
A game is worth money only if entertain players

OneLastGambit

Hear me out for a moment because what I'm gonna say might instantly generate an emotional response...

Is the grind:reward ratio that bad?
Is the G:R something new?

Back in the 90s I started playing an rpg game which at the start of the game saw your characters increase very rapidly...then later in the game (when you really need them to improve quickly) it becomes an endless grind of random battle encounters which progresses them by a miniscule percentage of their potential.

Even earning new equipment for characters was an endless grind of random battle encounters HOPING they drop that 1 piece of equipment I've been looking for.

I never heard anyone complain that this was a terrible system. I never heard anyone say they hated it. In fact I still hear to this day that final fantasy 7 is one of the greatest games ever made. A game that relies on a lot of the same principles as this ... Grinding for little rewards... Random prize acquistion.

So i pose those two questions again?

Is the G:R new or bad? Bad you could argue for...new you can't since every single rpg relies on this mechanic.

I'm not arguing for or against the primary progression and acquisition mechanics this game, simply asking a question.

Bowgentle

OneLastGambit wrote:

I never heard anyone complain that this was a terrible system. I never heard anyone say they hated it. In fact I still hear to this day that final fantasy 7 is one of the greatest games ever made. A game that relies on a lot of the same principles as this ... Grinding for little rewards... Random prize acquistion.

Imagine defeating Emerald Weapon after 85 hours of playtime.
It drops the Earth Harp which you can trade in for some really good rewards.

If MPQ designed FF7 your party of level 99 characters would face a level 500 Emerald Weapon with 600 Million Hitpoints instead of a level 99 version with 1 Million Hitpoints.
And it would drop a random reward, chosen from a potion, a phoenix down, 100 gil with a 0.15% chance for a hi potion.

If rewards scaled to enemy levels about 95% of the vets would stop complaining.