Just how casual ARE the casuals?

Smudge

GurlBYE wrote:

As someone who is casual, but plays more than an average casual person does when i actually engage with the game, the biggest issues that likely causes people to do that is ,tedium, roster strength and life itself.

Clearing the same thing in a game 4 times isn't something i thought to do and wasn't something i knew i had to do until I read it on the forums.

At lower roster strengths while scaling is lower, you damage and abilities are pitiful. imagine fighting bullseye with 1 star hawkeye and storm and iron man as your strongest. Now do it 4 times

Around the mid point of the game you have to decide to chase all the rewards or figure out whats worth it. You can grind for multiple hours a day (contrary to popular belief of those who don't look at the clock as they grind, clearing a sub does take more than 30 minutes) that new singular cover of spider gwen is nice when you have 12, but not so nice when you don't even have the HP to roster her

There's also those of us who use this as a casual break and when home would rather play other games when they are available, leading to less clears.

Personally unless the rewards are awesome or useful I'll skip events so I burn out less.

4 clears is boring to me, and some events I'll just enter so I can get the 2-3 star tokens from my alliance rank.

Due to not the CL I enter, but the timezone I live in, the 11pm slice is one of the most popular from what I see, so clearing 4 times can be anywhere from top 20 to top 200 depending on when I enter the event.

You summarized a lot of how it felt for me for the longest time. I just derped around in the game from time to time until I happened across the forums in late 2015 and finally joined them earlier this year.

I started playing in... April 2014? I'm almost at day 995 for the daily rewards and way too lazy to do the math, but that sounds about right. Environment tiles were still a thing. Rubberbanding in PvE was definitely a thing. I read the guides on how to play PvE in November-December 2015 and was completely confused on how to play correctly.

Casuals are *highly* casual. I knew back then that sometimes my nodes were worth a TON of points, and sometimes they weren't. I knew that it looked like I'd never have a chance at catching the leaders, so I just played until I got bored or ran out of health packs (usually the latter!). I'm sure that a lot of people are downloading the game, dabbling a little in the event, losing interest, and moving on. Or they have no clue how the game is ideally played, so they just clear stuff here and there until it gets hard or frustrating, then close out and do something else.

I forget who said it, but someone mentioned in a different thread several weeks back that the competitive aspect of this game really caters to a specific crowd: Marvel fans who are gamer-geek oriented in some way. Most people who are just passing Marvel fans aren't going to get hooked and play this game hard. Some of the match-3 type people who enjoy Bejeweled and similar games might get roped in, but it's a pretty tight-knit group of us who truly enjoy and want to build as much as we can in MPQ. The casual crowd ain't us!

Alsmir

Smudge wrote:

GurlBYE wrote:

As someone who is casual, but plays more than an average casual person does when i actually engage with the game, the biggest issues that likely causes people to do that is ,tedium, roster strength and life itself.

Clearing the same thing in a game 4 times isn't something i thought to do and wasn't something i knew i had to do until I read it on the forums.

At lower roster strengths while scaling is lower, you damage and abilities are pitiful. imagine fighting bullseye with 1 star hawkeye and storm and iron man as your strongest. Now do it 4 times

Around the mid point of the game you have to decide to chase all the rewards or figure out whats worth it. You can grind for multiple hours a day (contrary to popular belief of those who don't look at the clock as they grind, clearing a sub does take more than 30 minutes) that new singular cover of spider gwen is nice when you have 12, but not so nice when you don't even have the HP to roster her

There's also those of us who use this as a casual break and when home would rather play other games when they are available, leading to less clears.

Personally unless the rewards are awesome or useful I'll skip events so I burn out less.

4 clears is boring to me, and some events I'll just enter so I can get the 2-3 star tokens from my alliance rank.

Due to not the CL I enter, but the timezone I live in, the 11pm slice is one of the most popular from what I see, so clearing 4 times can be anywhere from top 20 to top 200 depending on when I enter the event.

You summarized a lot of how it felt for me for the longest time. I just derped around in the game from time to time until I happened across the forums in late 2015 and finally joined them earlier this year.

I started playing in... April 2014? I'm almost at day 995 for the daily rewards and way too lazy to do the math, but that sounds about right. Environment tiles were still a thing. Rubberbanding in PvE was definitely a thing. I read the guides on how to play PvE in November-December 2015 and was completely confused on how to play correctly.

Casuals are *highly* casual. I knew back then that sometimes my nodes were worth a TON of points, and sometimes they weren't. I knew that it looked like I'd never have a chance at catching the leaders, so I just played until I got bored or ran out of health packs (usually the latter!). I'm sure that a lot of people are downloading the game, dabbling a little in the event, losing interest, and moving on. Or they have no clue how the game is ideally played, so they just clear stuff here and there until it gets hard or frustrating, then close out and do something else.

I forget who said it, but someone mentioned in a different thread several weeks back that the competitive aspect of this game really caters to a specific crowd: Marvel fans who are gamer-geek oriented in some way. Most people who are just passing Marvel fans aren't going to get hooked and play this game hard. Some of the match-3 type people who enjoy Bejeweled and similar games might get roped in, but it's a pretty tight-knit group of us who truly enjoy and want to build as much as we can in MPQ. The casual crowd ain't us!

I could see myself play more if I was able to transfer from Steam to mobile account, but I can't. That limits my playtime to hours after work, when I'm at home. Even without kids I have plenty of other responsibilities and face it, when I sit in front of my PC ready to play something, there are many better options.

Oddly enough, I feel that these hardcore MPQ players (or self-proclaimed casuals doing full clears in PvE + playing PVP) are in way a bit casual. MPQ is hardly the best game ever, and frankly, I wouldn't even recommend it to a friend. It takes just a few minutes to make some research and find better alternatives. That's the casual approach. Unfortunatelly, if you're oblivious to other games, you might just think that available ISO deals are a great idea, that fuels the economy and the game stays alive.

rc35

Alsmir wrote:

It takes just a few minutes to make some research and find better alternatives.

What are some better alternatives (if I ever get sick of MPQ, which I can see happening in the future)?

Polares

aesthetocyst wrote:

Interesting. Multiple people expressing the same ... IME, CL8 isn't that competitve, except on new releases. Haot haveing any problem making t50 in the Hunt, and I'm not playing optimally.

I don't agree with this statement, and I think it might be related with which time slice you use. I play in the third time slice which I think it is the most competitive :S

Clearing all nodes 4 times, and then the 4 easy nodes 7 times, during the day, usually gets me close to top100, but usually outside in SCL8. Usually getting all green ticks gets me top100 but not top50 (sometimes it does, but it is not a sure thing). For top50 usually I need green ticks but done with the efficient clear (4 clears when it opens, 2 clears one hour before it closes).

Bowgentle

Polares wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

Interesting. Multiple people expressing the same ... IME, CL8 isn't that competitve, except on new releases. Haot haveing any problem making t50 in the Hunt, and I'm not playing optimally.

I don't agree with this statement, and I think it might be related with which time slice you use. I play in the third time slice which I think it is the most competitive :S

Clearing all nodes 4 times, and then the 4 easy nodes 7 times, during the day, usually gets me close to top100, but usually outside in SCL8. Usually getting all green ticks gets me top100 but not top50 (sometimes it does, but it is not a sure thing). For top50 usually I need green ticks but done with the efficient clear (4 clears when it opens, 2 clears one hour before it closes).

The problem is that there aren't enough people in some slices.
I joined Hulk SCL8 S2 12 hours after it started as number 450+, in the second bracket in S2.
My bracket never filled. 6 1/2 days and the bracket never reached 1000 players.

ZootSax

Polares wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

Interesting. Multiple people expressing the same ... IME, CL8 isn't that competitve, except on new releases. Haot haveing any problem making t50 in the Hunt, and I'm not playing optimally.

I don't agree with this statement, and I think it might be related with which time slice you use. I play in the third time slice which I think it is the most competitive :S

Clearing all nodes 4 times, and then the 4 easy nodes 7 times, during the day, usually gets me close to top100, but usually outside in SCL8. Usually getting all green ticks gets me top100 but not top50 (sometimes it does, but it is not a sure thing). For top50 usually I need green ticks but done with the efficient clear (4 clears when it opens, 2 clears one hour before it closes).

For what it's worth, this is my experience as well. In the recent Juggernaut Heroic, going to tick marks sub-optimally got me Top 100 in one sub (~85-90th), but only doing four clears wasn't event Top 200 for the others. This generally is consistent with my experience for PVE placement since they changed the format (and even when they started the tests in the Spring). I don't always play for more than the 4* in PVE, though, so I could have a skewed view based on some unlucky brackets when I do play more.

mpqr7

In all brackets, it takes a lot of work to make top 10/5/1/etc, but it's usually quite easy to make top 500/250 or even sometimes 100. Plenty of people just play the game a little bit and haven't gotten as obsessed as the rest of us.

GurlBYE

Now that i think about it, of course the player base is a majority casual.

They don't even explain the game to people who don't visit the forums lmao.

There isn't a single mention of how to clear pve events after you go through the tutorial where your primary goal is to clear everything once to unlock more.

Never is it explained how you get the most points.

never is it explained how to build a roster

The games clunky and unrefined because it was kinda just left that way.

I'm betting a huge number of people who play probably just give up entirely when the first few events are over

Linkster79

I now play once in a blue moon. I'll join an event if it's about to finish and that's about it. I'm done with competitive play so will get what I can in as short time as possible and accept I won't ever play with the latest shiny toys.

DFiPL

Finished #36 in the event that prompted this thread. That was useful.

byc

I call myself a casual...

But I have like 3600 hours, and I'm fully in the 4* transition in a bit over a year. No $$$ spent.

Bowgentle

byc wrote:

I call myself a casual...

But I have like 3600 hours, and I'm fully in the 4* transition in a bit over a year. No $$$ spent.

3600 hours in a year? Ten hours per day, every day, for a year?
That's your definition of "casual"?

atomzed

Alsmir wrote:

Oddly enough, I feel that these hardcore MPQ players (or self-proclaimed casuals doing full clears in PvE + playing PVP) are in way a bit casual. MPQ is hardly the best game ever, and frankly, I wouldn't even recommend it to a friend. It takes just a few minutes to make some research and find better alternatives. That's the casual approach. Unfortunatelly, if you're oblivious to other games, you might just think that available ISO deals are a great idea, that fuels the economy and the game stays alive.

I agree that MPQ is not the best game, and in terms of return of investment on money, it is super lousy. (I spent way too much money on a mobile game @_@ Games that i played in my youth, such as Final Fantasy, Warcraft, Counterstrike, DOTA are way better....and cost much less.

But I have to disagree that the "hardcore MPQ players are casual". At least for me, i see myself as a former hardcore player, but due to work and family commitments, can never afford to spend the same amount of time as before. And this is where MPQ strength shines. It can be played fairly on demand (unless you gunning for top 5, which is a different story). i can start a game, put my phone away for 20 mins to attend to my baby, and then continue on to finish the game. I can play a game before i start driving, and then play another after i parked. Each game is also fairly fast.

There is a sense of progression , albeit controlled by RNG. In that sense, it really fulfils my needs as a hardcore gamer.... without me needing to go full throttle behind a computer.

Maybe what i am describing is true of most mobile freemium games. And i feel that the freemium games have came at the right time. we have 1 or maybe even 2 generations of people who grew up playing console games. we grew up, and with the family and work commitment can no longer spend so much time on it. The freemium games fill that gap perfectly.