MPQ Report Card for the Last Two Weeks

Unknown

Since these last two weeks have been the least I've played MPQ over the last five months, I thought I'd reflect over the last few Dev changes and use my fingers elsewhere to do what people do on the Internet –– critique and whine. So here's my report card for the changes over the last two weeks.

EXCELLENT - Added Alliance score viewing.

EXCELLENT - Added Alliance chat.

EXCELLENT - Information on new characters, Gold Daken and Falcon, and their skills.

GOOD - Numerous UI/UX changes like Alliance tabs and scrolling.

GOOD - Fixed CMags' purple. Now it works as intended.

GOOD - Added occasional 25 HP rewards to Daily Rewards.

GOOD? - In-game currency price changes across territories.

GOOD - VentureBeat articles that added transparency on game changes and decisions.

GOOD - IceIX active and chatting on the forums is always a big help.

GOOD - Average PvE refresh times have been around 12 hours.

Edit: GOOD - The addition of awesome new board moderators that forced me to say something nice about them.

GOOD - Events have a new section on the boards.

PASSABLE - Last week's delay of events by one day.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Courageous tokens for Hero Lightning Rounds no longer guarantee featured covers.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Diabolical tokens for Lightning Rounds no longer guarantee featured covers.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - 10 packs no longer guarantee featured cover.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Scaling cap raised to 400. The current scaling system literally encourages players to play less. (unless you count all the additional time players now spend in Prologue healing)

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Unachievable PvE progression rewards. It's like looking at the top rewards shelf at a D&B arcade, knowing you'll never get them.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Unstable ISO-8 had no subs for a 7 day event, meaning even less rewards.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Unpredictable refresh times in Unstable ISO-8. Also, wasn't friendly to any players outside of North America.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Rubberbanding in Unstable ISO-8 was more elastic than a lucha libre wrestling ring.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Five events in a row (yes, I'm counting each Heroic as two) that restrict rosters to 6-8 characters.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - One of them is Bag-man? Really??

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Five events in a row that give out the same character rewards.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Not rotating covers (colors) between personal and alliance rewards. Non-alliance players get no love.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Venom stunlocking (I get the irony, but that's just mean, devs.)

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Auticorrevt in Alluance chatt.

FAIL - Critical disco ball.

I don't know what this translates to for a final grade, but you get the point. Did I miss anything?

Unknown

Psst.... You forgot to include in the "good" the recruitment of some awesome moderators to the forum.

Unknown

Lol yes, you're certainly right. For some reason, I knew that happened but I thought it was outside of two weeks so I didn't include it. I'll add that in.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

Lol yes, you're certain right. For some reason, I knew that happened but I thought it was outside of two weeks so I didn't include it. I'll add that in.

Man, it only took me 2 weeks to be tempted to abuse my mod powers. If you think you're being forced now to say something nice about us...

So as not to totally derail your thread, I think I would disagree with this statement:

Knock3r wrote:

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Unachievable PvE progression rewards. It's like looking at the top rewards shelf at a D&B arcade, knowing you'll never get them.

I've commented in other threads that the issue wasn't with the progression rewards but with the unchecked rubberbanding. Progression rewards need the grinders, and due to rubberbanding, the grinders have no incentive to do their job. In an effort to make the event equitable on the last day for everyone, the devs have destroyed everyone's ability to achieve progression rewards.

For bracketed tourneys, I think it's sufficient to keep rubber-banding limited to just that bracket. This would allow you to put a rubberbanding formula together that correlates what day you started with how far in the progression rewards you can get. If you start day 1, play all 10 days, you should get 100% of the rewards. If you start day 10 and play just that last day, you shouldn't be able to get more than 10% of the progression rewards. Everything in between can be formulaic to make sure you're being rewarded for time played. I feel that a system of progression rewards that rewards the amount of time you've spent playing is a more fair system than to lump progression + placement rewards together.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Knock3r wrote:

Lol yes, you're certain right. For some reason, I knew that happened but I thought it was outside of two weeks so I didn't include it. I'll add that in.

Man, it only took me 2 weeks to be tempted to abuse my mod powers. If you think you're being forced now to say something nice about us...

Your text is in black, so I assume I'm speaking to a reasonable, compassionate, gentle-hearted forum brother now.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Venom stunlocking (I get the irony, but that's just mean, devs.)

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Auticorrevt in Alluance chatt.

Lol. Good stuff. Those two made me laugh out loud.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Knock3r wrote:

Lol yes, you're certain right. For some reason, I knew that happened but I thought it was outside of two weeks so I didn't include it. I'll add that in.

Man, it only took me 2 weeks to be tempted to abuse my mod powers. If you think you're being forced now to say something nice about us...

Shhhh... Don't let them know we are abusing our powers until it is far too late... Bwahaha!

IceIX

pandaberry6 wrote:

Shhhh... Don't let them know we are abusing our powers until it is far too late... Bwahaha!

::Puts finger on the De-Mod ray button:: Zip it. Zip.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Five events in a row that give out the same character rewards.

I actually... like this? Five might be excessive but it's better than sitting on a half dozen 1/1/1 and 2/2/2 3*s for eternity

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

pandaberry6 wrote:

Shhhh... Don't let them know we are abusing our powers until it is far too late... Bwahaha!

::Puts finger on the De-Mod ray button:: Zip it. Zip.

Its a good thing I didn't green text that evil laughter at the end or I'd be a pile of de-modded-dust.

Unknown

Sorry, Knock3r, seems like we de-railed your thread anyway.

gamar wrote:

Knock3r wrote:

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - Five events in a row that give out the same character rewards.

I actually... like this? Five might be excessive but it's better than sitting on a half dozen 1/1/1 and 2/2/2 3*s for eternity

I actually like this as well. And it was really only a weeks worth of events in a row, given that the heroics ran in parallel. Still, this limited roster might have been a tad harsh just b/c it included 3 relatively new 3* characters, which made it "less fun" for a lot of people who lacked them at sufficient covers. I'm choosing to say "less fun" over "more difficult" b/c the pitiful damage that my Psylocke was doing in her 50's and 60's was painfully slow against the 70-110 level enemies I fought in round 1. So I won way more often than I lost, but it lacked the punch that fighting with superheroes normally has.

Droc76

FAIL - Critical disco ball.

I thought I was the only one to hate the disco ball. This isn't candy crush after all. This is serious! Good post lol.

Unknown

pandaberry6 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

pandaberry6 wrote:

Shhhh... Don't let them know we are abusing our powers until it is far too late... Bwahaha!

::Puts finger on the De-Mod ray button:: Zip it. Zip.

Its a good thing I didn't green text that evil laughter at the end or I'd be a pile of de-modded-dust.

IceIX just totally Seth-Greened you. --> http://youtu.be/32C0eKRQVt8
When a problem comes along, you must zip it. Zip it good!

Unknown

Unstable ISO-8 wasn't 9 days was it? I thought it was 6-7 or so.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

Unstable ISO-8 wasn't 9 days was it? I thought it was 6-7 or so.

Yep, you're right. I just remember it being a big blur of time. Thanks! Changed.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

GOOD - Average PvE refresh times have been around 12 hours.

I actually don't like 12 hour refreshes. Considering it takes at least 15-30 minutes to actually complete a set of nodes after refresh, it continually pushes back the next refresh time.

Example play time using 20 minute completion time:
Day 1: 6:00-6:20 in morning. Then 6:20-6:40 in evening.
Day 2: 6:40-7:00 in morning. Then 7:00-7:20 in evening.
Day 3: Would have to play at 7:20, but I have to get ready for work around 7, so miss this refresh and can't play again until about 6 in evening.

With 8 hour refreshes I can actually play twice a day and not have to hurry.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

I've commented in other threads that the issue wasn't with the progression rewards but with the unchecked rubberbanding. Progression rewards need the grinders, and due to rubberbanding, the grinders have no incentive to do their job. In an effort to make the event equitable on the last day for everyone, the devs have destroyed everyone's ability to achieve progression rewards.

I agree with you. The Unstable ISO event had rubberbanding all over the place so people were less motivated to play when they can lose their spot in a blink of an eye. But I think that part of it still goes back to the bigger problem which is scaling. Scaling has been such a scary beast that people are also afraid to play more often. It used to be that players would beat each node at least four times a clear and now people are stopping at one or two.

Gamar wrote:

I actually... like this? Five might be excessive but it's better than sitting on a half dozen 1/1/1 and 2/2/2 3*s for eternity

True, I'm definitely down with awesome covers rather than Loki or Rags. We'll see how this pans out since the gaming population will be flooded with more Shieldbros and if we're going to see him a lot more frequently now in both PvE and PvP.

Team_Xtreme wrote:

I actually don't like 12 hour refreshes. Considering it takes at least 15-30 minutes to actually complete a set of nodes after refresh, it continually pushes back the next refresh time.

Example play time using 20 minute completion time:
Day 1: 6:00-6:20 in morning. Then 6:20-6:40 in evening.
Day 2: 6:40-7:00 in morning. Then 7:00-7:20 in evening.
Day 3: Would have to play at 7:20, but I have to get ready for work around 7, so miss this refresh and can't play again until about 6 in evening.

With 8 hour refreshes I can actually play twice a day and not have to hurry.

So on an 8 hour refresh, if you play at 6:00-6:20 on the first day, doesn't it mean you would have to then play at 2:20-2:40? Aren't you working then?

Besides, let's say there's a 48 event and you start at minute 1. An 8 hour refresh would mean you'd optimally have to clear the set of nodes 6 times, and back then, 4-5 times a node. Having a 12 hour refresh means you would have to optimally clear the sets only 4 times instead. (This is just an example; I know I didn't add in playing times that would shift resets) This, to me, reduces fatigue and burnout.

Having to play the same nodes every 8 hours was so repetitive that it made me feel like John Locke having to punch in the numbers on the computer every 108 minutes... 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42...

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

So on an 8 hour refresh, if you play at 6:00-6:20 on the first day, doesn't it mean you would have to then play at 2:20-2:40? Aren't you working then?

Besides, let's say there's a 48 event and you start at minute 1. An 8 hour refresh would mean you'd optimally have to clear the set of nodes 6 times, and back then, 4-5 times a node. Having a 12 hour refresh means you would have to optimally clear the sets only 4 times instead. (This is just an example; I know I didn't add in playing times that would shift resets) This, to me, reduces fatigue and burnout.

Having to play the same nodes every 8 hours was so repetitive that it made me feel like John Locke having to punch in the numbers on the computer every 108 minutes... 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42...

Since you can't clear nodes in 0 time, you'd actually only be able to get in 5 clears for 8 hrs and 3 clears for 12 hours, in your example

Let's say you allot yourself 2 hours to do a set of nodes. So assuming 3.5 day subs, with a 12 hour refresh, I'm typically alternating days when I do a clear at 6-8 am and a clear at 8-10 pm with days where i do one clear at around 5:00 pm (with times adjusted for when the sub ends). Harsh, strict schedule every other day. With an 8 hour refresh, I'm doing 2 clears a day at whatever time I want as long as they're 8 hours apart. Much more flexible.

Unknown

GOOD? - In-game currency price changes across territories.

Definitely not good.