recommend the game to a friend?

irwando

0

I actively warn people away from the game if they've never played.   Now way they'll ever catch up, more and more bad design changes, more and more bugs going unfixed. 

beyonderbub

New McG said:

beyonderbub said:

10 out of 10 each and every time. If I play it, why wouldn't I recommend it? Everything else one can adapt to and get over it. Still progressing and having fun. 

I'm not sure how long you've been playing, but I think if you started a brand new account right now, you'd be startled by how behind you'd be.

Day 1182. I started behind and will always be behind players who pay more and play more but if that is the criteria for deciding to play this game, then no one would ever play. That's seems to be the inherent problem here. Forumites too worried about everyone else's progress, their store offers aren't the same, who's cheating, who's climbing on cupcakes and posting negative views on the game that they don't see the only solution to all their in-game problems is "just play the game". You're not going to earn any more resources by posting here. People post things here as if their opinions were fact and apply to everyone when the truth is their posts usually only apply to their current level and game situation. Believe it or not, I started a second acct on Steam one year after my mobile acct and built it up to have its own 3*s champed. I just stopped recently bc mobile accts had more rewards and it became too much time to keep progressing on both. So yes my Steam acct is behind but so what? I still enjoyed all those hours I played that acct. Being behind in this game is a fact of life for most on here, in my opinion.  

Screen Monkey

Have recommended game in past, would hesitate to do so now as it is a huge time investment to play even in top 1000 bracket, never mind the top 50 where i usually find myself

metallion

beyonderbub said:

New McG said:

beyonderbub said:

10 out of 10 each and every time. If I play it, why wouldn't I recommend it? Everything else one can adapt to and get over it. Still progressing and having fun. 

I'm not sure how long you've been playing, but I think if you started a brand new account right now, you'd be startled by how behind you'd be.

Day 1182. I started behind and will always be behind players who pay more and play more but if that is the criteria for deciding to play this game, then no one would ever play. That's seems to be the inherent problem here. Forumites too worried about everyone else's progress, their store offers aren't the same, who's cheating, who's climbing on cupcakes and posting negative views on the game that they don't see the only solution to all their in-game problems is "just play the game". You're not going to earn any more resources by posting here. People post things here as if their opinions were fact and apply to everyone when the truth is their posts usually only apply to their current level and game situation. Believe it or not, I started a second acct on Steam one year after my mobile acct and built it up to have its own 3*s champed. I just stopped recently bc mobile accts had more rewards and it became too much time to keep progressing on both. So yes my Steam acct is behind but so what? I still enjoyed all those hours I played that acct. Being behind in this game is a fact of life for most on here, in my opinion.  

Not really an issue of whether new players will be behind the curve here. I'm Day 1264 and I was always behind the curve, even behind players who started 1 year after me, but I never had any issue with that until the recent changes. Vaulting effectively locks out 3/4 of the game to newbies by not giving new players the chance to earn those old covers that have been thrown in the vault. Sure you can argue newbies can get those covers by bonus heroes, but how long does it take to cover just 1 character using only bonus heroes? To put things in perspective I drew my first 4* bonus hero after 35 LT draws, by this measure I'll max out a single 4* this way after 455 draws.

One of the huge draws of this game is the massive amount of characters playable in this game, and immediately locking out almost 3/4 of the characters that actually matter the moment a new players starts the game for the first time isn't going to retain new players, since they'll eventually realise they'll never even come close to catching up to the vets.

I was actually explaining to my friend about this game a couple of weeks ago and all the issues with the recent changes esp vaulting, and he asked the all important question: So it's impossible to catch up if I start now? No prizes to what I answered. 

I get the feeling you're basing your judgement on your experience over the past 3 years. Keep in mind the whole game environment has changed overnight the moment they introduced vaulting. No longer is it possible to build your roster at your own pace when all characters are available like how I've been doing over the past 3 years. It's now a race to get your characters up before they get vaulted out or risk leaving them useless and undercovered in limbo. As long as vaulting remains an issue, this is not a game that I'd recommend right now.

Beer40

I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sure all the various reasons I have already have been discussed. And that's my point really. A lot of us have the same issues with the game and our concerns are just straight up ignored. The game itself is a fun waste of time (even with the constant bugs) but its all the other unnecessary stuff that comes along with it that causes me to tell people to avoid it. 

I'll use DirecTV for my analogy. You can draw the parallels with MPQ yourselves. Satellite tv is a fun waste of time. Lots to choose from. Good fun. Overpriced. Imagine that you buy a subscription and they start taking channels out of your package. "People are watching these too much. We want you to watch these other channels we're promoting". Then your service randomly switches channels...or cuts out...or channels don't always work properly. You complain, you visit the provider forum and see its happening to lots of people, and they're complaining. Your complaints change nothing and the provider does what they please while collecting your money.

Some of you people would recommend that to a friend? I don't want friends like that! 

broll

At this point I wouldn't recommend the game to an enemy...

Crnch73

so I was talking to one of the friends who I convinced to stop playing the other day. This is an almost exact quote from him:

"So I see we need Red Hulk for this story mode currently. How am I supposed to get him? Other than earning him through the same story mode eventually, how else can I earn him?"

Basically, with vaulting, people who have less than a year in this game are at a disadvantage. They need a required character to get the rewards. Those characters are vaulted, so they can't earn the progression reward until maybe the final (or second-to-last) day of the story event. Without that character, they can't earn full progression without massive time requirements and grinding. If someone else in their bracket has even 1 cover, they are almost assured a top 10 finish. The "have's" will have a distinct advantage over the "have-nots". It is more than having something because you worked hard at acquiring it. This has become a world where you have something by sheer luck or because you joined early enough to beat the developers to the punch. My friend was very confused, and as I explained what was going on, he was very quick to take a vacation from the game until something changes.

None of this even goes into the fact that there are a staggering number of characters in this game. Except for 1 stars, I have every character rostered. It took me a lot of "work", some money, and a long time to get to this point. I personally enjoy the game because I have a full roster and can play any node in the game. I can't justify telling my friends to enter into this world right now. I always try to be honest with people, so I tell them the game still has its fun moments. I believe I have fun because I slogged through the tough times while it was still possible to get through them. Now, it seems like instead of getting through them, you're just supposed to accept it as your new fate.

Now, what if my friend's favorite Marvel character, for whatever reason, was Red Hulk? It would take him forever to fully cover his favorite character. This can also take away from the fun factor. Never mind the bugs that are going on without anything getting noticeable better in months. It feels like they have hidden the older characters (which are some of the strongest 4's in the game and half of the 3's) behind a pay-wall, which makes the current realm hard to stomach.

0 out of 10 until something improves.

AlluAllu

metallion said:

One of the huge draws of this game is the massive amount of characters playable in this game, and immediately locking out almost 3/4 of the characters that actually matter the moment a new players starts the game for the first time isn't going to retain new players, since they'll eventually realise they'll never even come close to catching up to the vets.

Yes, I can understand how that irritates the completionists. To see something you can't realistically achieve. And it indeed is a race against time. Ibelieve you when you wouldn't recommend that to others. But there are 3 stages of the game before 4-stars. Are those 3 stages not fun enough to be worth a recommendation? I remember when I was a newbie that 1-star Spider-Man in particular was fun. Little webs here and there, and whammo! Suddenly 4 critical tiles! That was awesome. 

I understand how people are disappointed in the game that they are currently playing. But I just wonder if you have forgotten those early days that got you playing this in the first place. 

mpqr7

I probably wouldn't recommend it to people, because it's a very hardcore game with massive time requirements.

That being said, I started it a few years ago, and I knew from the reviews that it was going to be a massive grind. Yet here I am almost 3 years later, pulling myself piece by piece, finally about to get a fully covered OML (oh, wait).

I would say that most of my friends are way too casual to be able to enjoy the pressures of this game.

metallion

AlluAllu said:

metallion said:

One of the huge draws of this game is the massive amount of characters playable in this game, and immediately locking out almost 3/4 of the characters that actually matter the moment a new players starts the game for the first time isn't going to retain new players, since they'll eventually realise they'll never even come close to catching up to the vets.

Yes, I can understand how that irritates the completionists. To see something you can't realistically achieve. And it indeed is a race against time. Ibelieve you when you wouldn't recommend that to others. But there are 3 stages of the game before 4-stars. Are those 3 stages not fun enough to be worth a recommendation? I remember when I was a newbie that 1-star Spider-Man in particular was fun. Little webs here and there, and whammo! Suddenly 4 critical tiles! That was awesome. 

I understand how people are disappointed in the game that they are currently playing. But I just wonder if you have forgotten those early days that got you playing this in the first place. 

I haven't, as I was including the 3*s that were vaulted as well, which adds up to 73% of the characters across the 3*-4* tiers thrown into the vault. Remember, 3/4 of the 3* tier has been vaulted as well. How long do you think it will take for new players to roster and level all of them? Maybe a couple of months for those in tokens, but what about those in the vault? And without easy access to 3*s, how do players realistically move up to the 4* tier? PVE cycles across characters way too slowly, there's the vaulting issue in LTs, and there's basically no way to fight in PVP without a top tier roster that these new players are guaranteed to never have. It's a dead end for all new players, and this huge roadblock in progression is the reason why I'll never recommend anyone to ever start this game until they fix the vaulting issue.

AlluAllu

Fair point about vaulted 3-stars. But aside from completionist view point, is rostering and building all 3-stars really necessary to enjoy this game? 20 characters should give one sufficiently diverse roster so that they don't get bored playing. I do agree that the move from 3-stars to 4-stars takes more playing time than it in any way should, but it's not like the game is forcing us to do it. Aside from "collect them all", there isn't any actual end point. Champing all available 3-stars is a nice place to quit and it should be achievable in reasonable time. 

Buuut... writing this reply made me understand that perhaps some new players would like to earn a high placement on leaderboards. In that case, yeah, absolutely not recommended. That ship has sailed. 

But if I were to sum my thoughts, this is how I'd recommend the game: "You'll never get to experience all characters fully, and you wont find yourself at the top of leaderboards. But you will get a fun Marvel-variation of a match-3-game with brilliantly addicting roster-building mechanics that stay fun from couple of months to a year-ish. "  

Crnch73

AlluAllu said:

Fair point about vaulted 3-stars. But aside from completionist view point, is rostering and building all 3-stars really necessary to enjoy this game? 20 characters should give one sufficiently diverse roster so that they don't get bored playing. I do agree that the move from 3-stars to 4-stars takes more playing time than it in any way should, but it's not like the game is forcing us to do it. Aside from "collect them all", there isn't any actual end point. Champing all available 3-stars is a nice place to quit and it should be achievable in reasonable time. 

Buuut... writing this reply made me understand that perhaps some new players would like to earn a high placement on leaderboards. In that case, yeah, absolutely not recommended. That ship has sailed. 

But if I were to sum my thoughts, this is how I'd recommend the game: "You'll never get to experience all characters fully, and you wont find yourself at the top of leaderboards. But you will get a fun Marvel-variation of a match-3-game with brilliantly addicting roster-building mechanics that stay fun from couple of months to a year-ish. "  

I guess my problem is this: admitting all the things you did (which I agree with), I get bored with the same roster all the time. Sure, you can play with whatever 3-person team you want, but in reality don't we stick with teams that have good synergy/color coverage? So, in 3* world, teams that involve switch/fist/cage/clops/im40, etc? I have every 3* champed and I can honestly say I maybe used 9 or 10 regularly while I was still in that tier. Maybe with thanos and strange being valuable 3's, that can also add to it all. But overall, what if you can't roster some of the better 3's? then you are stuck saying "well, I can't win that node" or "well, gotta use the same old team"... that's what roster variety means to me. Someone is hurt? On to the next character. A certain team combo isn't working? Try something else. But with limited rosters due to vaulting... you don't get that luxury.

This isn't even my plight. I can play around with a bunch of characters if I choose to. My favorite 3's are still getting used a lot, and I like that aspect. But if someone can't participate in certain nodes, or can't win any more, or can't even play because the only good characters they have are all "dead" and they have no more health packs... The game isn't built to sustain that sort of play. And that is fine, but you can't keep the same game mentality and also lock a lot of the game away. It's not even locked away in a manner that says "some day, your roster will be high enough to play these!" like the DDQ crash. Instead it is locked away like "you can't do this... and you may never be able to. Enjoy!"

Daredevil217

- Vaulting
- Vintage Heroics (ridiculously diluted paywall solution to vaulting)
- Bugs galore
- Using the community as beta testers
- OML nerf
- Proposed changes to Tacos
- Focusing almost exclusively on non-vaulted heroes in PVE progression
- Heroes for Hire store that offers different prices to everyone
- Replacing 4* covers with 5 CP in the Strange Sights vault
- Poor communication and mixed messages from developers

Recommending the game is essentially free advertising for D3.  Why would I advertise this game when the creators have in a VERY short amount of time, made decision after decision that have infuriated their player base and have delivered said changes in some pretty awful ways as well.  I get that they are a business and money is important.  It is their company and they can do what they want.  If establishing some goodwill among their player base is not a high priority, than so-be-it.  But am I going to actively advertise for them when this is the case?

No.

JVReal

It's not just that you can't have enough fun with a handful of characters... it's when certain characters are the best characters to counter an enemy that you have to grind against 6 times per node, 3-7 days in a row... and you don't have access to that character.

Or you come on here and you read tips on certain teams have better chemistry, etc, and then you try to put that together and you don't understand why you aren't getting them.

I went through that as a newbie as Vaulting was going on when I started 930 days ago... and I wondered why I wasn't getting any more 3* Caps, etc... and finding out that no matter how much I wanted him I couldn't finish him until the devs decided I could... or unless I paid for his covers (if I owned one already).  It's definitely irritating.  And finding out that an essential was a vaulted character that you couldn't win (at the time) from any progression.  Very discouraging.  Fortunately around that time I got into my alliance and had a lot of support and rewards, and that is what kept me playing, and has predominately kept me playing through all the good and bad of this love/hate relationship with MPQ.

I've not invested financially in real dollars, but I've given of my time, missed sleep, premature battery death on an iPhone, the occasional wrath of my wife, because more often than not, the game overall is fun especially when playing with a great group of people.  If I was still playing solo... I wouldn't have lasted 6 months.

I too have a newbie Steam account, and I can barely stand playing it because I feel like I'm sitting there with my hands tied and unable to do much... (or is it unwilling to do much?)... and I have not recommended it to people because I know it will not be very enjoyable if they don't invest heavily in either time or money or both.

FaerieMyst

10 out of 10

For over 3 years I've played and read the forums.   Still love the game and recommend it.   Still laugh at the hysteria. 

Crnch73

I just can't bring myself to say to a friend "yea it's a fun game... when everything goes right." and still recommend it. Anyone who has been playing for a long time is still enjoying the game because they can, including myself. People who can't play nodes every PVE, people who can't do the behemoth burrito ever, people who started covering their 4stars only to get them ripped away, people like me who haven't gotten a bonus 4star (or 5star) despite a huge number of LT pulls (over 100 and still waiting!), people who look at the 120+ characters in the game and feel overwhelmed, people who are still annoyed by some of the bugs like Daken or the count down tiles... this game is still a little fun for me, but it wouldn't be fun for a newbie.

If the game is a "little" fun for me, I would hesitate to recommend it. Since it looks impossible for a newbie, I can't recommend it at all, just because it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to try to start building a team right now.

If they fixed some of this junk? If I started saying "I am having more than just a little fun"... I would be back to recommending it. Until then, I have a conscience so I just can't do it.

DyingLegend

I use to Rave about this game. Now I'm not so enthused to talk about it. I'm still holding out hope that a new game mode is coming down the pipe that will make getting any 4* easier.

GreenyBoy

A new survey popped up today. After so many positive reviews this time I give it a 0.
Till 3* transition the game is kinda ok and fast, you feel like your making improvements each week (not sure now due to the new vaulting system).
After that... The game becomes boring and you feel your not making any progression.

I'm a 4* transitioner with only 3 of them champed.
Scaling went over the tops and I end up playing most of the time with those 3 champed 4* and with boosts... The 3* kinda went meaningless cept for im40, strange and Thanos.

Game has become boring at this point imho.

Daredevil217

I also rated it a 0 and will continue to do so until vaulting is remedied.

theloniuscrunk

This is a good game but it has to be considered with the usual f2p reservations: it's engineered to be addictive and to get you to spend small amounts constantly. If you can deal with it as a casual mobile game, I highly recommend it. As a lifestyle, not so much.