Steam and new player rant.

Alsmir

Steam player here, getting close to 1 year of playing, mostly casually. In the recent weeks I was playing a bit with MPQ app on my phone. Here are some of my thoughts.


Steam vs app.
1. No contest here. I fell like I'm an asbolute moron for not researching MPQ when I started playing 1 year ago. I was convinced that Steam version was the only one available. Months later I found out that app version existed, but I ignored it, thinking that if I decide to try it, I will be able to use my existing account.

Why can't I use my account from Steam on my phone? Why is it possible for Hearthstone to have linked accounts but not in MPQ? Why can't I transfer my collection to app account?

Unacceptable.

2.If app and Steam versions are so different, why the hell players on both platforms compete against each other? We don't even have true PvE (progression only), I will always be in disadvantage as a Steam player!

3. Playing MPQ on my phone is the best thing ever.

Imagine if any time you wanted to eat something you had to go to a restaurant. How inconvinient would that be?

I feel similar playing on Steam. I have to go to my home, turn on the PC with Steam installed to play MPQ. It sucks!
With app I can play:
- during lunch break at work
- in the kitchen, whe I'm waiting for my food to cook
- during  a bus ride
- at any time I have few moments to spare

It infuriates me to think that I struggle sometimes to get a stupid 4-clear in a sub, because I don't have enough free time at home, but if I was able to play on my phone, I'd do those 4 clears, finish DDQ, do some PvP and other stuff no prob.

4. Intercepts, those bloody intercepts.
ISO, tokens, HP, even CP! That's a free currency. Even that 500 ISO would require few games, while here I can just drop my phone for up to 30s and  claim the reward.

Those are absolutely riddiculous. It's disguisting that such an unequality exists. Why is there nothing for Steam players?

New player experience.

1. I remembered that my first days in MPQ were rough compared to later stages, but it wasn't that bad. SCLs managed to make a poor experience even worse. Reducing the rewards for new players? Seriously?

2. Now I know, why so many new players in my casual alliance stop playing after 1-2 weeks. Roster slots!
With so many new characters introduced, new player needs even more hp to keep up with everyone else. On my Steam account I've spent roughly about 20k HP (that I bought) for roster slots alone. Finally, after 1 year I'm kinda up to date with characters and releases. I'm missing few 5* and 2x 4* characters, with no spare slots at the moment. I earn around 1k hp/2 weeks to keep up with releases. I have enough spares to buy ~2 event tokens per month.

Any new player is in a position where sheep (or sth) hits the fan. Over hundred characters. Because of essential nodes, you need to roster most of them. Expiring covers make everything so much worse.

Day 9. 10 roster slots. I've grabbed as much hp from prologue as I could right now. Only keeping 2x 1* for now. I already have 2 covers waiting for a slot and 9 non-standard tokens waiting to be opened. If I don't hoard or spend $$ I will loose countless covers.

My current option is 300hp for 3 slots.
Im at CL2 right now. Progression in current 7-day PVE gives a total of 75hp.
Top 10 placement gives 50 hp.
Top 10 in each sub gives 10 hp!

How is that a new player friendly? It feels like a direct attempt to force newbies into buying hp.

I'm not getting any hp from Tacos, since I need at least few good 2* for that.

3. Rewards at low CL are just garbage. 1200 prog in PvP gives you 2 cp. How is that relevant for any newbie? Prologue spits out some ISO, covers and standard tokens, but you still need to rely on RNG to even cover IM35. Hp is very scare (as mentioned above) plenty of standard tokens that become useless after first few days, or if you know how bad 1* tier is.
But then even when I get better rewards (like vault tokens from Strange Things) I can't reallly open them because I lack roster slots.

4. I really have trouble imagining how a new player could continue playing and stay happy.

a) spending $$ for few thousand HP for slots - seems like a no-go for a game that he/she plays for a week or so
b) grinding hp? Where, how?

The only option that I see is:
1. Hoard tokens (I'm not sure how many new players know you can do this, even less will be happy with hardly any progress and earning rewards that they can't use)
2. Grind xp as crazy to open new CLs with better hp rewards.

Sad thing - it might be not good enough if we continue to get new characters every 2 weeks.

Conclusion:
Either rosters slot costs need to go down, or releases need to slow down, or new ways introduced to earn hp (especially for new players) or the game will die, as veterans slowly move on and hardly anyone new comes in.