How likely are you to recommend Marvel Puzzle Quest?

firethorne

Well, it appears it is "How likely are you to recommend Marvel Puzzle Quest to a friend?" season again, with a new popup in game. Where do the forumites weigh in this time?

smkspy

1


I love the game to death, but I couldn't recommend it to anyone at this point. Maybe I was lucky and got in at just the right time before 5 stars and 4s were just a few (Ant Man was the first 4 intro for me), so "catching up" if you will didn't seem all too complicated.

As the game stands now, it's just too much and if I can't see myself being able to start over then I can't see myself recommending this game to someone else. That's just my standard though.

Punisher5784

When I first started playing I told all my friends about it. A good friend of mine started playing and we started an Alliance together.. that's when our friendship got sour. We would constantly fight about how we weren't playing enough and were missing out on alliance rewards. It got even worse when my friend made his friend a Commander and his friend invited his Girlfriend in the Alliance.. she NEVER played. 0 pts every event. This made it difficult to recruit mercs or permanent members. Eventually I left the alliance and joined my current Alliance but sadly our friendship also ended. He doesn't even play anymore but my old alliance is still running.. with the girlfriend and her 0 pts!

This alone is the reason I will never recommend it to a friend.

I could probably write a Punisher story post about this experience . Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Jaedenkaal

I've recommended it before a few times, and I'd do it again if I thought the person would like it. The match-3 game/Marvel character interest overlap is a real thing.

As far as free-to-play games go this is one of the best that I've found in terms of ability to progress without actually buying anything. Possibly even the best.

I don't go out of my way to broadcast to complete strangers, of course, which is why I always find these polls sort of funny. My "likelihood to recommend" anything has much more to do with the person than with the game.

bbigler

I wouldn't recommend it because progression after the 3* tier is too slow. Making the 3* - 4* transition requires tons of time just to make slow and steady progress. The game stops being fun because you use the same 3* characters over and over since your 4*s aren't battle ready yet. Slowly you gain more usable 4*s, but it takes a lot of patience and time. I wouldn't wish this self torture upon anyone even if they want to do it. Why am I still playing? Well, I guess they got me hooked on it.

The easiest way to fix the progression in this game is to reduce the exponential cost to level up characters and slow down new character releases to 1 per month.

Vhailorx

voted 4. The mechanics of the game are sound, it is fun to play, and I would tell that to anyone who asked, so I can't say I wouldn't recommend the game at all.

But I would not be at all enthusiastic about recommending this game to a newcomer. I have a decent 4* roster built up and can see having usable 5*s in 6 months or so if I get decent pull luck; I find a fair bit of enjoyment in playing the game (able to play PVE and PVP to almost whatever level I desire, though 1200 in PVP is a bit of a pain for me now). But a new player will likely take 1.5 years or several hundred dollars to get a game experience close to what I have. The transition takes SO long and there are so many potential pitfalls that need to be avoided for an efficient roster build. Plus the demands the game makes on time/money resources are very substantial. It's not something that I would suggest for most people.

Smudge

Barrier to entry is far too high now without overwhelming time or money invested. That alone merits my 0.

I love the game, play it daily, and would speak highly of the level of fun had, but if you want anything more than a casual game, MPQ is not for you.

peteer01

I know I personally brought somewhere around 10 paying customers to this game. I read the stories from other people about girlfriends in alliances and I think of my brother's girlfriend in our casual alliance and shake my head.

I made many a recommendation around alliances, such as allowing people to earn the *higher* of two options: Personal progression and Alliance progression. Alliance rewards became less of the reward pie over time, and I commend the MPQ team for those becoming less important, but that's like telling someone their car alignment is less bad...it's still not quite aligned with most players.

My big issues are the crazy bugs, the horrible boss rush, the horrible support when dealing with bugs in boss rush (and in general), and unfortunately, David [Hi-Fi] Moore, my e-mail recipient of last resort is now gone. I reached out to Brigby, but the resulting conversation was thoroughly disappointing.

I'm at a point where playing the game is part of my daily routine, but I'm not sure I enjoy it any more. Not because the mechanics aren't fun...MPQ is GREAT when balanced and working. The combination of beta testing on customers, rolling out horrible events (boss rush), poor support and an overall frustrating experience for everyone from long term casuals to long term hardcore grinders make it difficult to experience the great MPQ experience for a prolonged period of time before some avoidable issue, support, bug or otherwise, gets in-between me and enjoying matching gems.

If all the bugs and support issues were ironed out, and the new leveling system were set up in such a way that people new to the game played against similar opponents in PvE and PvP, I'd have rated this in the 8-10 range. I've been burned far too many times to recommend anyone start playing it in its current status.

peteer01

firethorne wrote:

Well, it appears it is "How likely are you to recommend Marvel Puzzle Quest to a friend?" season again, with a new popup in game. Where do the forumites weigh in this time?

It looks like this was just asked one month ago:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=53958&view=viewpoll

And October the year before that:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34263&view=viewpoll

Not sure if the last month and change has just been as painfully bad for everyone else as for me, but initial trends between this poll and the one in October are more striking than October to the year before.

zulux21

last time they asked this I gave it a 6 or a 7 and in fact did get a friend to play it.
this time i gave it a zero. (I would have given it negative if I could see further)

in general they have been improving the game, but their screwing of steam users via not even allowing VIPs to get the intercepts (as since they don't watch ads there isn't any good reason to exclude them) and the fact they won't work with steam users to migrate their account to mobile means I won't recommend this game to anyone and I will actively talk anyone I know who is thinking about trying it out of trying it.

I'm still playing because it's my go to zone out game, but unless they do something about how they are screwing over steam users I highly doubt they will ever see a penny from me again or get any of my friends to play it again.

ejmus

I raised it from a 6 to a 7 because of the improvements, and the meta and gameplay is still great. Won't go higher without them fixing the progression and event variety.

babinro

8

While I'm not exactly thrilled about the state of the endgame I feel like MPQ is a GREAT game for people to at least check out and get a feel for.

The amount of ISO being handed out these days is insane. By the time you reach 'vet' status you can remain free to play, keep up with ISO demands of new character releases and the HP demands of roster slots.

The game heavily rewards DDQ and PvE which is PERFECT for anyone whose new to the game.

We no longer have a game where placement is king. There are objectively good rewards for people finishing in the top 200 which is perfect for people who aren't playing super hardcore or optimized.

What keeps things from being higher than an 8 are the many frustrations that exist old curmudgeonly vets like myself.
- 5* covers are not colorless (except latest through customer service nagging)
- RNG determines your 5* progression and it's measured in several months (hope your patient because if you save LT's for 8-12 months you'll finally be ready to play with some champed 5*s' luck depending)
- 5* championing benefits are WAY too good and will quickly make covering new 5*s pointless without spending thousands of dollars to whale them. This is honestly my greatest fear for the game right now and it gets very little attention. Ask someone how useful a level 450 anyone is when you have level 475's or level 500's.
- 4* champion rewards eventually become great but take FAR too long to reach that point.
- MMR is too unforgiving and enemy scaling can be too unforgiving
- Steam players like get screwed out of meaningful long term gains, avoid that platform at all costs.

Combined all of these issues really hurt MPQ but these are issues new players won't even face for what...a year? minimum?

I'll happily recommend a game that will keep someone busy for a year while getting involved with a great community of players.

Jaedenkaal

babinro wrote:

8

Combined all of these issues really hurt MPQ but these are issues new players won't even face for what...a year? minimum?

I'll happily recommend a game that will keep someone busy for a year while getting involved with a great community of players.

Exactly this. Sure, the 3 -> 4* transition is slow (faster than ever, though). No one I recommend this game to is even going to know what that means for a long time, and if they have have fun with the game for 5 months and then move on, it won't have even mattered to them at all.

HxiiiK

1

But don't get me wrong, I love this game to death. It's Marvel, it has a huge roster, I do love it (poor decision on the dev's side and miscommunication aside) I love collecting all sorts of covers because I'm a collector, and it's fun!
HOWEVER! It's far too unfriendly to new players. I imagine myself at the start of this game all over again and I'll definitely put it down and never touch it again. I will not go through the horrors of collecting every single cover again and again, slowly scraping together the measly amounts of ISO to champ them again. And of course, I definitely wouldn't wish it on my friends.

padei_panda

I posted a zero.

The experience with my friend:

1. The hype of progression in 1* and 2* land is fun and fulfilling but lasts for 1 month~,
2. 3* land sets you up for how MPQ will be like in the long term, the fun is turning into a slog for ISO,
3. You move out of the newbie brackets and you are mentally that your roster is actually not that powerful,
4. As a result of 3, rewards have decreased. You want to remain competitive by playing more but both PVE and PVP dynamics will create stress and frustration to you.
5. Daily rewards offers no excitement at all as the prizes are obsolete.

So in my opinion, you may as well not start in the first place.

GurlBYE

0 I'd say at my highest point in the game somewhere around 1.

-Progress is too slow
-Prices are too high
-Rewards aren't very good for effort
-Tiers are too bloated
-Dev responses too slow
-Every mode is competitive but it also tied to your roster, that is constantly held back artificially
-One of the stingier of the F2P games. (bi yearly sales, that only slightly increase the value of currency that costs nothing to produce)
-You can't actually progress to your favorite marvel character. Really enjoy Phoenix? Maybe you can have her in 3 years, or you can pay 5K or so.
-There's no strategy, just collect everything because events aren't based on clearing nodes under conditions but just clearing them as fast as possible against people with better rosters
-New game play elements are incredibly rare and then left minimally tested when they are actually out and historically always released on weekends so the feedback can be ignored.
-You either constantly feel a sense of "never going to catch up" or you're on the top, and still feel like you've got to collect more characters you can't even use
-Scaled so that you never feel powerful against cpu, they just exponentially level past where you can. Like tweaking the ai to match 5's as you level up or use multiple powers would be a more intelligent system
-Pve is embarrassingly paced and never has been truly "good". Asking people to clear nodes 4 times isn't challenging or entertaining it's sleep inducing.
-Pvp isn't really even an option for new players, or most middling ones


Essentially the game is a job. I haven't turned it on in months and not felt like I was working on a task instead of turning it on to have fun.
Nothing is fun. clearing something 4 times in a row is not something that would be considered casual in any game but this one.

it's just as grating that everyone ignores much more ridiculous the 4 transition got with them popping up like weeds all of a sudden. It happened with 3's yes, but you earn one of those daily, and they are scheduled.

you can earn 1 4 star every 3-7 days for sure ( I won't count crash because those are made for people with covered 4's)

Even covered I have nothing to look forward to when people already have champed 5's and that tier is not only diluted but 10000% RNG,
and also has daily rewards that may extend past this games lifespan for players starting today.

Pylgrim

Man, so much Stockholm Syndrome. If you are so miserable why do you keep playing?

Anyway, I rated it 8. Yes, yes, it has all the issues that you and I know and I have been very critical of them in the past. However, it's a fun take on a match 3 game, probably the most fun take I've seen. The way characters interact with the board and each other in was correlating to their comic powers is strategically intresting and fun to operate. There have been some bad decisions, some massively bad decisions and you can tell there are some issues deeply ingrained in the very core of the game... yet, when looking back in a holistic way, it is undeniable that the game has progressed and improved on a regular and reliable way which gives ground to expect more improvements in the future. There is lots of monetisation yes, but the F2P road, although bumpy and rough, is not implausible as in so many other games.

So yeah, if a person I know is a fan of Marvel and not a mobile games newb, I'd very likely recommend MPQ to them.

Xalthim

one change would move my 5 to a 10: reduce the damage taken when climbing in pvp. should be only a fraction of your progress between shield hops not more than, as it often is.

smkspy

Pylgrim wrote:

Man, so much Stockholm Syndrome. If you are so miserable why do you keep playing?

Anyway, I rated it 8.

At least, you admit you're suffering from it. That's the first step on th road to recovery.

padei_panda

Pylgrim wrote:

Man, so much Stockholm Syndrome. If you are so miserable why do you keep playing?

That is because there is a difference between starting with a 1* roster and a developed 4* roster.

We are never going to end up finishing this race (aka maxing every 5* char) as the Finishing Line keeps moving forward, but for me it is okay to be 3km away from it, instead of 20km away (the Starting Line).

And since you have been running this race for a long time, you have kinda gotten use to it

Bowgentle

Once again, a 0 from me.
Will give a 0 until some major things change.

Can not recommend this to anyone not already playing.

Lures you in with easy covers and ISO, then after a few months you realize to play competitively in any game mode requires a truckload of money AND a truckload of time.

PVE T10 requires 3+ hours daily, plus however much PVP you do (that can be trimmed to 2 hours every two days if you have the roster for it).

So about 20+ hours per week, which equals a part-time job.

Nobody should start that.

The reason we all keep playing is sunk cost fallacy, or a gambling addiction, possibly both.