How likely are you to recommend Marvel Puzzle Quest?

Dormammu

I can't recommend this game to anyone, because if I do I feel it is my duty to explain to them things like RNG, MMR, scaling, and beg them NOT to open tokens (for several months!) that will improve their roster. I'm going to sound like a deranged lunatic.

And I don't really want to do that.

fmftint

I can't recommend a game where optimal progress is
spend thousands or hoard for months on end

You know that ultra rare premium currency you keep getting? Yeah, don't use it

Wut?

The Viceroy Returns

I vote what I usually do = 3.

The paywall hits HARD with roster slots, and doesn't really stop there. You constantly get covers you have to trash because you have no room.
The worst of it though is that your entire progression is almost completely random (aside from placement rewards).
There's no way for any new player to make any headway, and even vets complain about those "unicorn covers" and getting the ol' RNG screw.

Only recently have there been some notable "Creature comfort" updates been made, like the sell all of a star rating button, but there are many others that have been needed for 2+ years that are still missing. There's many issues with the mobile UI for example so we can always see our AP for example. The one place Steam users have it better.

New events are often buggy, too hard, or a combinations of both. Glalactus Ver 1, Boss Rush, and the Dr. Strange event boss (not gonna butcher his name), show that they have no idea how to balance an event.

Overall decent mechanics built off-off the standard Puzzle Quest engine and great art (outliers like the homunculus Iceman and Invisible Hag aside), but I get the feeling that this game would not be around anymore if it didn't have the Marvel license due to the many issues that keep cropping up and content acquisition.

El Satanno

I like reading these threads for two reasons. The first being all the responses which are replies to other questions like "How much do you like this game" or "Is this game any good?" The second being that the portion of replies that actually answer the question echo my own sentiment. I think my response to the poll, a 5, is largely encapsulated in Omega Red's very precise response here:

Omega Red wrote:

MPQ is competitive, has a somewhat complex metagame and requires time, planning and dedication. You can certainly play it casual and enjoy it but the bottom line is that this is not a game for your average movie-goer fan looking to match gems. It's a game for comic-book geeks who like being competitive, managing resources, building and leveling over time, setting goals and meeting them.

I'd argue that it has a very complex meta-game, but that's not the point. I am fortunate enough that what few friends I have are all pretty into games, so I can easily break down in detail what is good and bad about this one. I haven't been playing for close to three years now because I don't like it but as others have already said to exhaustion, it's hard to see how someone starting now could get the same kind of ride. Basically a 5 rating in my book means that you'll fun for a brief spell but it's not anything you'll want to stay with.

Now if they wanted to actually ask "How much are you enjoying the game" I'd probably give it an 8 or so. That, however, is a very different question.

Yoik

I’ve been playing for almost 3 years. There have been things I wished changed and things I thought were great. The common theme is that I’m still playing. Safety sitting in the 4 star land I’m comfortable with my lot. I’ve never had as much iso as now or coins or cp as we do now. There Are bugs that annoy me and cascades too. But I’m in a good alliance and I get my rewards and I’m in a nice position. The game controllers clearly try to improve, update and fix. Maybe not in a way that satisfy 100% of the people all of the time but that is impossible and there are plenty of games out there where there is zero interaction or content updates.

Thinking back since I started to play I’ve come a long way and there have been many changes and it has taken a long time, however it is a game I’m going to play anyway and the fact that time passes doesn’t matter, as incrementally you will get to where you’d like to be eventually. That’s the nature of a game where you level up items / things / toons.

It’s a game you can pay to speed up or plod along either way and enjoy content. I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend the game because that’s not a normal conversation id have. However if someone mentioned they were into marvel or like matching games or was looking for a game to level up and progress with differing content and variety then I would certainly recommend MPQ.

I do not feel the need to quit nor am I bored. I still have things to work towards with a plan in game. I guess with that in mind and that after 1078 days that in itself is recommendation enough.

8punch

1. ISO. why is iso needed at all? first i get an extra card so my charchter gets already stronger. yet i still needed to get iso to level up my charchter. terrible gameplay design that is only made for people to pay money. it is terrible frustrating.

2. the us of HP. buy slots for charchters i can actually understand. paying money for HP to safe my charchters? paying money for shields? what kind of idiot decision is this?

3. game has zero to do with skill and all with $$$$. all the people that win in the PVP have incredible rosters. nothing to do with skill all got to do with $$$$$. people who win PVE all have lot of time and lot of $$$ on their hands. again nothing to do with skill.

4. champion a charchter. first i max out then i need another bunch of iso to champion is. what kind of stupid gameplay design is that. when my charchter is maxed it should be already championed.

5. PVE. playing a node 7 times after each other is not fun. playing the same chachters over and over again is not fun. dark avengers anyone?

6. PVP. how many times do i need to play against team that has either old man logan champed or phoenix champed?

7. to get from level 4 to level 5. you better start saving either 13000 stars or 250 legendary tokens. why bother open on occasion cards because you never be able to champion your level 5 card.

this is just on top of my head. so in conclusion i would never ever recommend this game to friends of mine in this current state.

it is by far the worst designed game i ever layed my eyes upon in 25+ years of gaming for a very popular brand.

sure teenage mutant hero turles on the nintendo 8 bit was difficult. but i would spend 60 dollars on it and that was it. to have a good roster in marvel puzzle quest i would have to spend like 5000+ dollars. for a mobile game!

how insane is this world getting?

because even if i was unbelievble rich i would still not spend like 5000+ dollars on this game. i would feel like i would be incredible stupid.

on the otherhand for those people who do i have a bridge to sell

so in short i would vote 0 !

carrion_pigeons

I gave it a 0.

The game is based on the concept of FTP, which is to say it exploits a bug in human programming that some people have that makes them incapable of understanding the relative value of money or time to a virtual pat on the head.

I use the word exploit because FTP games are deliberately, consciously exploitative with it. Spending thousands of dollars or hours on a game ought to be embarrassing for people, not a point of pride, but the game disguises that fact so well that it's actually hurting people's livelihoods and relationships. I would not, in a million years, put a friend at risk by exposing them to that kind of environment. If they had that bug in their brain, I would have done them a huge disservice.

People have argued that if you're wealthy, then it's fine to spend whatever you feel like spending on whatever you feel like spending it on. I do not agree. I think people who believe that are just incapable of coping with the fact that they're addicted to virtual pats on the head.

I occasionally find myself spending time playing the game when I would rather be doing other things. When I realize that, I take a break and don't come back until I feel like MPQ is comfortably at the bottom of my priority list. Putting it anywhere else on the list is just asking for personal problems.

xellessanova

1000+ days in I still like this game, and recent quality of life improvements (character buffs, ISO flow, HP flow, clearance levels, load time fixes, VIP / ads) have made it somewhat consistently better than recent screwups (PVP shield hops beyond 900 utterly miserable, scaling, BR playtest fail, ads) have made it worse.

But there is no way on Earth I could honestly recommend this game to a new player who wants to be free to play / low-spend ($20) or low time-commitment. 100 roster slots cost 60,675 HP total. There are 113 characters and one is added every two weeks.

"Starting from scratch, you would get a ton of dilute tokens for which you would have to buy roster slots if you wanted the chance to keep and build those characters. You are rewarded for having the essential character but punished for having them at a low level. You will likely be locked out of placement for specific covers, so progress at the beginning (and also at the 5* endgame) would be essentially random. You would have to invest at least 2 to 4 hours a day to build this roster, and your family will complain that you spend way too much time on it. It's literally a part-time job. You probably won't have time for any other computer games. After you hit a certain point number in PVP you can be seen by anyone with a better roster, who can stomp on you in no time at all and a half-dozen people will hit you at once. At some point, the game will close down and you will have nothing to show for your time and money other than being mildly engrossing, decreasing your chances of developing PTSD, and also you may have made some fond acquaintances in offline chat if you were not a complete tinykitty."

Seriously, who would take that deal?

GuntherBlobel

I gave it an 8, which is higher than I've ever given before. Frankly, I don't want to be the reason that a friend of mine makes a ridiculous purchase they may later regret. It's a lot easier for me to recommend a $60 game than a freemium game that has no spending limit.

V.I.P. has greatly bumped up my chances to recommend it. I have no problem telling a friend that I spend $10 a month on this game and I have no regrets. It was a lot harder to tell them to define a budget for themselves and keep track of their purchases. I love MPQ, but I hate mobile game purchasing schemes.

GurlBYE

GuntherBlobel wrote:

I gave it an 8, which is higher than I've ever given before. Frankly, I don't want to be the reason that a friend of mine makes a ridiculous purchase they may later regret. It's a lot easier for me to recommend a $60 game than a freemium game that has no spending limit.

V.I.P. has greatly bumped up my chances to recommend it. I have no problem telling a friend that I spend $10 a month on this game and I have no regrets. It was a lot harder to tell them to define a budget for themselves and keep track of their purchases. I love MPQ, but I hate mobile game purchasing schemes.

That's interesting.

i'd still argue the value prop is off, because 10 bucks a month (120 a year) is enough for a casual console gamer to pick up 4 decent games a year on sale or 2 big titles.

Or subscribe to an mmo, which has similar time dedication necessary but more rewards and content.

Which are both two huge reasons why people gave it lower.

Woojciech

After 3 years + playing, and now loosing control over my acc, and not even getting an answer from support.. i dont think ill tell anyone about D3 or anything thats related to them

Lets see if ill get answer in the next 72 hrs. that will be 10 days total then ..

peteer01

Woojciech wrote:

After 3 years + playing, and now loosing control over my acc, and not even getting an answer from support.. i dont think ill tell anyone about D3 or anything thats related to them

Lets see if ill get answer in the next 72 hrs. that will be 10 days total then ..

Good luck. Support hasn't been helpful in 2016, and has been horrible in the last few months.

Hope you get your account back. My friend got someone else's account before they got him his after he got a new phone, and then his account was gone again as soon as he updated his iPhone and the game. Support told him he needed to do a factory reset again, and he eventually gave up.