Funbalancing Queue Update?

Unknown

With any RPG game there's a place for healers and stunners. MPQ has many RPG-like elements so if we put it in that category then characters like Spidey and OBW are valid types and should not punish you by scaling levels of your opponents to the max.

What about Wolverine/Daken with self healing? You can exploit them by making sure they are tanking most of the colors. Then go into the prologue to heal them if needed.

I don't like health being a factor in determining skill, but I can't think of any other effective way to measure the player's skill if you're going to allow players at any stage to be competitive. And this is where the problem is. In any normal RPG you have progression. You don't expect your noobs to be able to go out and slay the dragon. They're supposed to acquire items and gain experience which takes time. Previous Puzzle Quest games were structured like that. Even in MPQ, the prologue follows a standard progression. The featured events break from that model to allow day 1 players to compete with day 149 players. It allows a level 1 fighter to obtain a vorpal sword +5.

Going back to healers. I like playing the game and if healers allow me to extend playing time then that's great. If I want to play casually where I'm forced to take a break then I'd go play candy crush or something. I refuse to pay for overpriced health packs when the game has plenty of other revenue streams.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Saying you don't need any 3* until after you have your 2* team up to strength is like telling someone they are too far behind in a race and they should give up instead of encouraging them to keep working on the long goal and it will eventually pay off.

Only if you view it as a race with the single goal of placing world first. If you view at as a race where everybody participating gets an appropriate prize then this is far from discouraging. Look at it the other way around, there are two players, one has a full fledged 2* team, the other has a somewhat developed 1* team, both invest the same effort. Would you rather give the 2* player yet another 2* cover and the 1* player a 3* cover or the other way round? Only one of these two options ensures that both players feel they received a good reward.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Would it be better if there were ... tournaments that had smaller iso rewards handed out lots of 1* and 2* covers with the top placement getting one 3*?

I've been mocked for saying it but yes, I think the game would be better if they ran occasional events where you could choose to enter either a "standard" bracket or a bracket that gave out rewards like this but not both

THEN
When I started playing during Christmas vacation and at least a month after that I wouldn't even think about winning a 3*. If someone told me to try I would assume he was joking. I started playing with 1* placing top 100 in events and tournaments for some 2* covers and tokens and when I leveled the 2* who were worth the ISO I started doing well in events. In the meantime the team was updated using a better character of the next tier each time. The first team was Iron Man/MStorm/MBW. I was lucky enough to get AWolverine covers early and he replaced Iron Man. Then OBW replaced MBW and Ares replaced Storm for a more offensive team. It is sad that most of the other characters were not needed during the transition, but you can't blame the players for that since they don't fill a much needed role, other than the occasional use in events when they are required. Eventually, AWolverine was nerfed and was replaced by Punisher, my first 3* to touch 100 (99 to be exact). This shows a clear path of constant evolution of the team and shows that the game used to work fine.

NOW
I am sick of 1* or early 2* rosters getting top 5 placements in events and tournaments because the game helps them get there. I get it. They want more players to get 3* covers because they may choose to spend HP to level their abilities, but sitting in top 5 next to a roster in which Iron Man 35 and MBW are the most leveled characters is insulting.

I wish the game had a different approach for the rewards. It would be much better if they held separate tournaments for players that make the transition to 2* and 3* and limit the rewards to only 1 type of cover. For example a 3* tournament could give a 3* (like Patch) for top 50 and 1-2 Heroic tokens to top 75-150. A 2* tournament give a 2* (like Ares) for top 50 and 2-3 Standard tokens for 100-200. As for participation, they could try several methods. One could be to limit participation to only 1 of them. If they saw that this didn't work, they could allow participation to both, but the MMR should not be as generous to players with weak rosters. Still, someone who played a lot should be able to place top 150 for a chance at a Heroic token.

Unknown

Moghwyn wrote:

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Saying you don't need any 3* until after you have your 2* team up to strength is like telling someone they are too far behind in a race and they should give up instead of encouraging them to keep working on the long goal and it will eventually pay off.

Only if you view it as a race with the single goal of placing world first. If you view at as a race where everybody participating gets an appropriate prize then this is far from discouraging. Look at it the other way around, there are two players, one has a full fledged 2* team, the other has a somewhat developed 1* team, both invest the same effort. Would you rather give the 2* player yet another 2* cover and the 1* player a 3* cover or the other way round? Only one of these two options ensures that both players feel they received a good reward.

I can understand if the complaint is it being that much harder for long time players to get the specific few rewards they still need, but saying new players should not have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them is flawed in my mind.

NorthernPolarity

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Moghwyn wrote:

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Saying you don't need any 3* until after you have your 2* team up to strength is like telling someone they are too far behind in a race and they should give up instead of encouraging them to keep working on the long goal and it will eventually pay off.

Only if you view it as a race with the single goal of placing world first. If you view at as a race where everybody participating gets an appropriate prize then this is far from discouraging. Look at it the other way around, there are two players, one has a full fledged 2* team, the other has a somewhat developed 1* team, both invest the same effort. Would you rather give the 2* player yet another 2* cover and the 1* player a 3* cover or the other way round? Only one of these two options ensures that both players feel they received a good reward.

I can understand if the complaint is it being that much harder for long time players to get the specific few rewards they still need, but saying new players should not have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them is flawed in my mind.

But for that 1* player, the 3* does virtually nothing outside of unlocking nodes for the next PvE event. The 2* player has the roster to place in PvP tournaments and earn more 3* covers to make the character useful in a reasonable amount of time, but the 1* player can't really do that, leaving them stuck with a dead cover. The 1* player would be better off getting 2* covers, so I don't see how them getting 3* covers is really a "higher level" reward for them practically speaking.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I can understand if the complaint is it being that much harder for long time players to get the specific few rewards they still need, but saying new players should not have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them is flawed in my mind.

New players should by all means have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them. It's just that if they show up with a plastic shovel for the treasure hunt they should have to put somewhat more effort into it than the experienced players who brought along some serious equipment. Why bother improving your equiment otherwise?

Unknown

I guess even at 50+ days I still feel like a new player and posts like this thread sound like people saying I shouldn't have earned any of the things I have managed so far.

This is partly a collecting game. I see absolutely nothing wrong with starting your 3* collection as soon as you can, yes even if it won't become useful till much later.

And unlocking nodes is a big deal usually. They are often the highest point value nodes which affects placement and progression awards given out rather strongly. So virtually nothing is actually quite a lot to some people especially with the degree that these characters are often buffed.

Unknown

Moghwyn wrote:

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I can understand if the complaint is it being that much harder for long time players to get the specific few rewards they still need, but saying new players should not have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them is flawed in my mind.

New players should by all means have access to higher level rewards if they are willing to work for them. It's just that if they show up with a plastic shovel for the treasure hunt they should have to put somewhat more effort into it than the experienced players who brought along some serious equipment. Why bother improving your equiment otherwise?

And can you show me that they aren't putting in twice the effort as the guy with a bulldozer? I was rather little in the first simulator but saw that I had a chance to earn some sweet rewards so I played obsessively. In this one my team is clearly stronger and better, but I am not giving it the effort and time I did last time around and my score reflects that.

P.S. I've got mad respect for someone who has kept up this conversation for as long as we have. I may not be agreeing with you anytime soon but I have greatly enjoyed the discussion.

Unknown

Right now, having favorable scaling in PvE is such a dominant factor in events that you can pretty much completely discard everything you know about rubberbanding, roster strength, or timing the system. I assume it's going to change eventually but right now new players have it pretty good, especially if you're one of those weird guys where your highest level guy is a level 15 major boosted character who is really level 105 that can defeat most enemies by match 3 twice.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Right now, having favorable scaling in PvE is such a dominant factor in events that you can pretty much completely discard everything you know about rubberbanding, roster strength, or timing the system. I assume it's going to change eventually but right now new players have it pretty good, especially if you're one of those weird guys where your highest level guy is a level 15 major boosted character who is really level 105 that can defeat most enemies by match 3 twice.

Someone sounds like a hater

Clintman

UncleSam wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Right now, having favorable scaling in PvE is such a dominant factor in events that you can pretty much completely discard everything you know about rubberbanding, roster strength, or timing the system. I assume it's going to change eventually but right now new players have it pretty good, especially if you're one of those weird guys where your highest level guy is a level 15 major boosted character who is really level 105 that can defeat most enemies by match 3 twice.

Someone sounds like a hater

Pfft that's not hate for Phantron, ask him how he feels about Spider-Man or Classic Magneto.

Unknown

Clint wrote:

Pfft that's not hate for Phantron, ask him how he feels about Spider-Man or Classic Magneto.

He blames Spidey for the scaling so it's pretty much the same thing

Unknown

Clint wrote:

UncleSam wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Right now, having favorable scaling in PvE is such a dominant factor in events that you can pretty much completely discard everything you know about rubberbanding, roster strength, or timing the system. I assume it's going to change eventually but right now new players have it pretty good, especially if you're one of those weird guys where your highest level guy is a level 15 major boosted character who is really level 105 that can defeat most enemies by match 3 twice.

Someone sounds like a hater

Pfft that's not hate for Phantron, ask him how he feels about Spider-Man or Classic Magneto.

You don't have to ask. Draw a random thread out of a hat and there's a chance he has mentioned how broken they are in that thread =]

Unknown

There's no shortage of people complaining about the PvE scaling even though their anger should've been directed to Spiderman since the scaling is designed to slow Spiderman down.

I suppose ignorance is bliss.

Spoit

gobstopper wrote:

Clint wrote:

UncleSam wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Right now, having favorable scaling in PvE is such a dominant factor in events that you can pretty much completely discard everything you know about rubberbanding, roster strength, or timing the system. I assume it's going to change eventually but right now new players have it pretty good, especially if you're one of those weird guys where your highest level guy is a level 15 major boosted character who is really level 105 that can defeat most enemies by match 3 twice.

Someone sounds like a hater

Pfft that's not hate for Phantron, ask him how he feels about Spider-Man or Classic Magneto.

You don't have to ask. Draw a random thread out of a hat and there's a chance he has mentioned how broken they are in that thread =]

To be fair, that's because he posts in pretty much every thread. He has twice the number of posts than most of the people who've been here since like october

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

There's no shortage of people complaining about the PvE scaling even though their anger should've been directed to Spiderman since the scaling is designed to slow Spiderman down.

I suppose ignorance is bliss.

Scaling is a pain in the ****, but it's not solely due to Spiderman. If Spidey was as unbalanced as you claim he would have been Rag-nerfed a long time ago. Is he unbalanced? Sure. But he's not the I-win button that Rags was.

Unknown

UncleSam wrote:

Phantron wrote:

There's no shortage of people complaining about the PvE scaling even though their anger should've been directed to Spiderman since the scaling is designed to slow Spiderman down.

I suppose ignorance is bliss.

Scaling is a pain in the ****, but it's not solely due to Spiderman. If Spidey was as unbalanced as you claim he would have been Rag-nerfed a long time ago. Is he unbalanced? Sure. But he's not the I-win button that Rags was.

Absence of action does not imply support. Ragnarok should've been nerfed two days after the first person had Thunderclap maxed but it took considerably longer than that for the nerf to come around. The staff of D3 simply might not be very big. But more importantly Ragnarok is easy to fix because he did too much damage for too cheap so you can just reduce damage and increase cost. Spiderman is too powerful but because all his abilities are tied to web tiles it's not as simple as changing ATU to 7 blue AP to stun the team for 1 turn because that makes the web tile dependency of the other two skills completely unworkable. There are some rather exotic suggestions to fix Spiderman but exotic suggestions may cause more problems than they solve. Certainly you can't possibly look at any of the exotic suggestions to fix Spiderman and say 'this is totally going to work', and unlike Ragnarok this is a character that is pretty much the core of any high level character due to his absolute dominance at PvE and comparatively more available.

Scaling is more than just anti-Spiderman, but on the high end it might as well just exist to slow down Spiderman. They even remember when you healed by going to prologue in PvE events, and guess who is responsible for that? If you're not allowed to use Spiderman, there's no way the fights will stay at 230X3 unless they feature 3 cupcakes for opponents (say, Yelena Bagman Hawkeye).

Unknown

Leave spidey as he is add one line to blue
costs 4% of maximum health

Spam all you want you will have to stop and heal at some point clearing all the old webs.

Unknown

Narkon wrote:

THEN
When I started playing during Christmas vacation and at least a month after that I wouldn't even think about winning a 3*. If someone told me to try I would assume he was joking. I started playing with 1* placing top 100 in events and tournaments for some 2* covers and tokens and when I leveled the 2* who were worth the ISO I started doing well in events. In the meantime the team was updated using a better character of the next tier each time. The first team was Iron Man/MStorm/MBW. I was lucky enough to get AWolverine covers early and he replaced Iron Man. Then OBW replaced MBW and Ares replaced Storm for a more offensive team. It is sad that most of the other characters were not needed during the transition, but you can't blame the players for that since they don't fill a much needed role, other than the occasional use in events when they are required. Eventually, AWolverine was nerfed and was replaced by Punisher, my first 3* to touch 100 (99 to be exact). This shows a clear path of constant evolution of the team and shows that the game used to work fine.

NOW
I am sick of 1* or early 2* rosters getting top 5 placements in events and tournaments because the game helps them get there. I get it. They want more players to get 3* covers because they may choose to spend HP to level their abilities, but sitting in top 5 next to a roster in which Iron Man 35 and MBW are the most leveled characters is insulting.

I wish the game had a different approach for the rewards. It would be much better if they held separate tournaments for players that make the transition to 2* and 3* and limit the rewards to only 1 type of cover. For example a 3* tournament could give a 3* (like Patch) for top 50 and 1-2 Heroic tokens to top 75-150. A 2* tournament give a 2* (like Ares) for top 50 and 2-3 Standard tokens for 100-200. As for participation, they could try several methods. One could be to limit participation to only 1 of them. If they saw that this didn't work, they could allow participation to both, but the MMR should not be as generous to players with weak rosters. Still, someone who played a lot should be able to place top 150 for a chance at a Heroic token.

SO much...THIS.

Back in "the day", there was a clear progression for players from 1* --> 2** --> 3*** that player who managed their event expectations could achieve. I slowly worked my way up the food chain, and although I am not at the top yet, I believe that I have planned and created a very sound roster that will enable me to complete the final push (at least for the moment) to 141.

Day 110 is ending for me, and today I achieved my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level 100 characters. (and probably 1-2 more than that by the end of the Simulator).

However, if I was starting today, or last week, or last month, this would be nearly impossible.

There is no possible plan of attack, other than either a) farm tokens and pray for the random RNG gods to deliver the exact right characters and covers to build a team and/or b) buy inevitable missing covers from the holes in the RNG-created team with HP/cash. This is as intended.

The same logic applies to why new characters can so easily place in brackets. Because it is intended for new players to be acquire as many different covers as possible, knowing full well that a casual player will a) unlikely have the roster space for the new 3*** character and b) will highly unlikely ever be able to obtain a full set or covers for said 3*** character. Both of which involve cash transactions to resolve successfully (outside of the player accepting the "pain" of deleting said covers - but then again, the player worked so "hard" for that 3*** cover... it all that effort really worth throwing the cover away for a measly 500 ISO? [Back in the day, for 25 HP, the answer could have easily been "yes" as HP is coveted])

The same logic now applies to alliances.... Why would one think that one of the covers moved to an alliance reward? To place as many new single 3*** covers in as many different hands as possible for the above stated reasons.

The same logic applied to scaling.... the hardcore is segregated away from the masses through personal scaling + community scaling, while the new accounts only see 0 + community scaling, leading to drastically easier PvE events in order to win those 3*** covers for the reasons listed above.

I'm happy that I play MPQ, but if I was on Day 10 instead of Day 110, I'd think I would have a vastly different opinion of this game.

People talk about the giant cliff that is the 2** --> 3*** progression being a giant barrier, but I hate to break it to the new players.... there is almost now an equally giant cliff from 1* --> 2**. But that's "okay", as new players can P2W to shortcut from 1* --> 3*** .

Which route does everyone believe that new players are following today?

Unknown

I can't imagine being new right now. I started back in the first week, when there were no events, you needed 50 covers and tokens were just a dream. It must be tough to max out a character trying to pull from gach. But with these bracketed tournaments (these were not in earlier versions) it's fairly easy to place well and get a 3 star regardless of what your roster looks like. So instead of trying to score on tokens, you focus on the tourneys you want to win and you will eventually max your characters, it's not nearly as bad as it was. Ie unbracketed tourneys, needing 50 covers, it can't be that bad.