Is the game dying?

SnowcaTT

Forum initial look killed of much forum usage. That and moving posts but not moving likes - many enjoyed having a huge number of likes, not just a huge number of posts (I was 3:2 on likes:posts on old forums, for instance).

OML nerf killed some vets motivation, for sure. Some paid/played for OML long ago and you've seen many more leaving because of it.

But let me tell you out in game world - I see SO MANY Thanos/BP in PVP and 5Hawk/Coulson in Sim. I'm still not taking any T5 in PVP or T50 in PVE. I don't think their money bottom line is hurting based on the new whales I can see and the dedicated (crazy?) time taken by many in-game.

Why there are so many befuddles me - the "new" content in game has been minimal for over a year. New PVE's/events are basically just like old PVE's/events. Basically ditto with boss events and the revamped DDQ. New characters are just more of the same. They added in champions - over a year ago. Having significant game play/style change (CHOICES) would really help out.

Phaserhawk

Or actual pvp like clash royale 

Arphaxad

The burn out is real for many players. I blame the insane new character release schedule. They need to slow down on the new four stars and let the player base catch up. That or massively increase our access to ISO-8.

Philly484

The only thing hurting the game in particular is the lack of new story content or new playable content. Like they need to expand on stories, add new tile colors "Orange and Pink!" Less variant characters that would allow them to expand on already in place stories, and not forcing players to purchase content without proper announcements or compensation.

scottee

I feel like there's also just some bad business decisions going on with the devs. Don't know if the story about new leadership is true or not. But at this point in the life cycle of the game, you're not gonna get a huge influx of new players, even with all the Marvel movie/tv tie-ins. (which seem like they're losing momentum)

Possible directions:
1. Make small changes to keep up and increase excitement within the existing playerbase, while bringing in a small but steady stream of new players.

2. Do nothing and keep the schedule cycling roughly the same.

3. Make changes that drive players away.

#1 is of course what you should do, but even if they were only doing #2, at least the game would last for a good while. Instead, they chose changes that do #3.

Look at some recent big changes: forum change, nerf a 5*, & vault old characters. All three of these changes have zero chance at accomplishing goal #1, at minimum they can do #2, and in reality, they've done #3. It's just bad decision making somewhere in management.

It's a shame, because this game has/had so much potential, but I think they're worried they got left behind by Contest of Champions. I think all that's left to do now is enjoying the dwindling revenue stream while looking for another project/job.

thisone

I laugh when people say the game is raking it in. Then the same people say they cant make new content because they have to make new characters to keep the game running.

I guess it must be a fine line between success and failure then. That, or theyre just greedy.

Click lol if you agree or off topic if you don't.. oh wait..

TheDobot

Its strange that a topic like this just popped up.  Last week I actually said to myself I hope they just close the game, so I can move on.

Ive played everyday since the beta and the game right now is stale and Im having trouble even getting up enough interest to do the 4 node clears for the final progression reward. The last 2 events I didn't even get to the first cover reward.  Mind you our alliance, once a top 100, is now barley cracking 600th place because all our whales have dialed back to basically just playing the DDP.

It is very obvious the creators of the game didn't have a long term plan and now the game is stuck in purgatory.  I don't even know how they can fix it at this point without starting over and I feel that it is inevitable that one day soon they will call it quits.  

If I had to label the state of the game I would call this the "grab as much cash as we can before we close the doors" phase.

whycantwesyncpc

TheDobot said:

Its strange that a topic like this just popped up.  Last week I actually said to myself I hope they just close the game, so I can move on.

Ive played everyday since the beta and the game right now is stale and Im having trouble even getting up enough interest to due the 4 node clears for the final progression reward. The last 2 events I didn't even get to the first cover reward.  Mind you our alliance, once a top 100, is now barley cracking 600th place because all our whales have dialed back to basically just playing the DDP.

It is very obvious the creators of the game didn't have a long term plan and now the game is stuck in purgatory.  I don't even know how they can fix it at this point without starting over and I feel that it is inevitable that one day soon they will call it quits.  

If I had to label the state of the game I would call this the "grab as much cash as we can before we close the doors" phase.

I feel the same way.  I don't want to give up the game as I absolutely love it, but thanks to vaulting it's virtually impossible to move forward.  It happened right as I was finishing up champing all the 3*'s, now with the 4's I can't pull any tokens because the odds of pulling an unusable 4* are so high.  I scaled back to just the ddq as well as I wait and hope the dev team with get some common sense/competence, but with basically getting a single champ level a day it's going to take years to put together the resources to actually be able to participate in the new system.  It's just so frustrating, especially since they intentionally broke the game and refuse to listen to us that have been royally screwed by the changes.

Phaserhawk

Honestly I don't care about most of what they do or don't. It's a game. And while we all demand perfection and the best from them most of us in our daily lives do enough to get through the day and that's where they are at. This format keeps working so they keep doing the same thing. If sales drop to a point they will adapt or collapse. What we think they should do vs what they end up doing will always be different but when it comes to buffs and nerfs, unless you are completely redesigning like say Quicksilver they need to take a more metered approach. OML too used?  Tweak low covered or reduce healing by 10% see how it goes. If too much add 5% if too little another 5%. It requires little to no programming issues you are just decreasing a number not rewriting code, but alas it is what it is 

Dauthi

I have no problem quitting when I see a game circling the drain, I quit MPQ when they hadn't done character balancing in around a year, and came back when they started it back up. Character balancing old characters isn't something that brings in income immediately, instead it reinforces quality of life of the players in general which keeps players in the long term.

What is killing it for me is Vaulting. They asked if I would recommend this game to friends, and I wouldn't. What if they really want Hulkbuster? What if they want Peggy? Sorry? I then look at my own personal goals, championing new 4*s, and it feels hollow. I will champion them only to have them removed from tokens and that will be the end. I really looked forward to max championing my 4*s. Hulkbuster hit 300, and I felt like he was really getting somewhere. That goal and satisfaction is completely gone because he is going to mold away in my roster like a relic of the past.

I'm not sure who vaulting helped, my guess is the big spenders because they are the only ones who will still max champ 4*s and get all those juicy rewards from it. They will probably have a much easier time doing so thanks to the limited vault characters as well. I can say with certainty this change was not for quality of life for most of it's players and as the realization sets in many will probably move elsewhere. 

Jexman

The bugginess of recent releases suggests to me that the coding has been outsourced, and that no one is going to write "new content" for this game going forward. It's on the way out, with Ares, Juggsy, and 2 star Bullseye leading the way as usual. RIP.

Partyof5

I am in a casual alliance.  When events like Civil War come around we reach about level 5 (first 4* cover).  There are a few hard-casuals, the rest is made up of players who are still working their way into 3* land.

We lost a long-time player a few weeks ago.  We have a pretty consistent roster, usually full to 20.  I have noticed that our alliance rewards now show 10-12 players player recently when it sued to be regularly at 16.  My gut feel is that newer players are not sticking around like they used to.   

Casual players want to play with their favorite characters.  Vaulting has taken that away.  Once they realize they will never get a playable Ant-Man, Iceman, etc.. they lose interest.  

Mechahamster

I'm gonna chime in and say that it's not really the game that's putting me off (although I do think the devs have taken away just a wee bit too much recently. Give us something too?) but I don't like the new forum. I just don't like using it.

Phaserhawk

Partyof5 said:

I am in a casual alliance.  When events like Civil War come around we reach about level 5 (first 4* cover).  There are a few hard-casuals, the rest is made up of players who are still working their way into 3* land.

We lost a long-time player a few weeks ago.  We have a pretty consistent roster, usually full to 20.  I have noticed that our alliance rewards now show 10-12 players player recently when it sued to be regularly at 16.  My gut feel is that newer players are not sticking around like they used to.   

Casual players want to play with their favorite characters.  Vaulting has taken that away.  Once they realize they will never get a playable Ant-Man, Iceman, etc.. they lose interest.  

I agree I have never played a game where they restrict characters and roster size such as this

n25philly

New McG said:

n25philly said:

Spudgutter said:

whycantwesyncpc said:

Phaserhawk said:

Partyof5 said:

I am in a casual alliance.  When events like Civil War come around we reach about level 5 (first 4* cover).  There are a few hard-casuals, the rest is made up of players who are still working their way into 3* land.

We lost a long-time player a few weeks ago.  We have a pretty consistent roster, usually full to 20.  I have noticed that our alliance rewards now show 10-12 players player recently when it sued to be regularly at 16.  My gut feel is that newer players are not sticking around like they used to.   

Casual players want to play with their favorite characters.  Vaulting has taken that away.  Once they realize they will never get a playable Ant-Man, Iceman, etc.. they lose interest.  

I agree I have never played a game where they restrict characters and roster size such as this

Most games aren't run by customer hating idiots

I try not to comment too often, but this just gets my goat.  Is that even necessary?  You post so negatively, so often, that I now recognize your name. If you don't like this game, do yourself the favor and stop playing. If you won't do that, do the rest of us a favor and stop posting!  

Why should I stop posting?  Did I intentionally break the game?  I really enjoy the game under normal circumstances.  Thanks to vaulting my roster is dead and I am stuck hording for the next 1-2 years before I have any chance to progress.  Excuse me if I don't enjoy that.  I could quit, but I don't want to, but it's not fun be forced to horde either.  So I since I cut my playing time down to just ddq I will take the time I have freed up from losing my one stress reliever in my 15 hour work day and use it to share how miserable they are making me in every way possible until they fix this mess.  I'll complain here, hammer their support, contact them and the developers directly until this mess is fixed.  Screw them, they want to treat us poorly then they don't deserve better.  You don't like it, too bad.  No disrespect intended but not everyone is happy to just bend over and take it when they are screwed and being quiet about it accomplishes nothing

1.) Pretty sure this wasn't addressed to you, unless you just tipped your hand that you have multiple accounts to complain with.

2.) If you're this proud about using your time to constantly complain about a free game, you really need to find something to occupy your time better. There's literally hundreds of other free games out there which could easily fill the same role, without requiring whatever steady stream of complaining this one now motivates you to spew, instead of even playing the game. Being a pest and a troll to people online, whether it's game developers/writers/random strangers/whoever, doesn't make you some upstanding warrior for the rights of the people. It makes you a jerk. Find a better use for your time.

1) Yes, I have two accounts. (in game, I didn't create another just to complain)

2) Who said anything about me wanting to be an upstanding warrior.  They want to ignore us and hope we go away, I am just trying to show them the same respect they show us.  If that makes me a jerk, I am a-ok with that.  If I could find a game I like as much I'll gladly move on.  Haven't found anything even close, so since I don't feel like blowing off my steam playing to just be forced to go nowhere I will do this.

Spudgutter

New McG said:

n25philly said:

Spudgutter said:

whycantwesyncpc said:

Phaserhawk said:

Partyof5 said:

I am in a casual alliance.  When events like Civil War come around we reach about level 5 (first 4* cover).  There are a few hard-casuals, the rest is made up of players who are still working their way into 3* land.

We lost a long-time player a few weeks ago.  We have a pretty consistent roster, usually full to 20.  I have noticed that our alliance rewards now show 10-12 players player recently when it sued to be regularly at 16.  My gut feel is that newer players are not sticking around like they used to.   

Casual players want to play with their favorite characters.  Vaulting has taken that away.  Once they realize they will never get a playable Ant-Man, Iceman, etc.. they lose interest.  

I agree I have never played a game where they restrict characters and roster size such as this

Most games aren't run by customer hating idiots

I try not to comment too often, but this just gets my goat.  Is that even necessary?  You post so negatively, so often, that I now recognize your name. If you don't like this game, do yourself the favor and stop playing. If you won't do that, do the rest of us a favor and stop posting!  

Why should I stop posting?  Did I intentionally break the game?  I really enjoy the game under normal circumstances.  Thanks to vaulting my roster is dead and I am stuck hording for the next 1-2 years before I have any chance to progress.  Excuse me if I don't enjoy that.  I could quit, but I don't want to, but it's not fun be forced to horde either.  So I since I cut my playing time down to just ddq I will take the time I have freed up from losing my one stress reliever in my 15 hour work day and use it to share how miserable they are making me in every way possible until they fix this mess.  I'll complain here, hammer their support, contact them and the developers directly until this mess is fixed.  Screw them, they want to treat us poorly then they don't deserve better.  You don't like it, too bad.  No disrespect intended but not everyone is happy to just bend over and take it when they are screwed and being quiet about it accomplishes nothing

1.) Pretty sure this wasn't addressed to you, unless you just tipped your hand that you have multiple accounts to complain with.

2.) If you're this proud about using your time to constantly complain about a free game, you really need to find something to occupy your time better. There's literally hundreds of other free games out there which could easily fill the same role, without requiring whatever steady stream of complaining this one now motivates you to spew, instead of even playing the game. Being a pest and a troll to people online, whether it's game developers/writers/random strangers/whoever, doesn't make you some upstanding warrior for the rights of the people. It makes you a jerk. Find a better use for your time.

You beat me to it, obvious troll, who has not posted in this thread at all, gets too upset?  My guess is that his other account got temp-banned again.  It's unfortunate, but there will always people like this online

Azoic

I have moved on to Gems of War, which is better in every regard. I am actually excited to play again. I log into mpq for the daily, and have put a few pvp points on..and then get bored or frustrated. I wish I had made the switch awhile back.

Jonny1Punch

Nice azoic. What are some other good recommendations now that many of us are leaving MPQ and taking our money and time elsewhere ?

MaxxPowerz

I find that these discussions tend to ignore the elephant in the room: the growing disparity that new players must face. How is a game to survive if it can not add new players, and how are new players ever going to build a roster with almost 200 characters? There are thousands of covers to collect, and the thought of getting a working roster under the pre vaulting system must be daunting.

Obviously, vaulting is the answer from the devs. While unpopular with the more seasoned players, it is crucial for the longevity of the game. Maybe this results in a product that many don't care for anymore, but very little of the criticism I'm hearing is actually constructive. 

El Satanno

Azoic said:

I have moved on to Gems of War, which is better in every regard. I am actually excited to play again. I log into mpq for the daily, and have put a few pvp points on..and then get bored or frustrated. I wish I had made the switch awhile back.

I played the console version of Gems of War for a while. I was playing right about when they released a major update which actually drove me straight out of playing. See, in that game you can use resources to upgrade all your cards into evolved versions with greater power. Sounds great, except now you've got the same amount of resources but every card demands them. It drove me straight out of playing. I don't see myself going back to it.

I hope you can enjoy it, though!