New Player here, wanted to share my opinion about the game.

nitefox1337

First of all hello to the MPQ community. Just wanted to share some opinions I have about the game.

The gameplay of MPQ is awesome. Simple, addictive, fun, and interesting. More you play, more you're wondering what other heroes and power do they have. There's a hidden depth which is a great quality.

I never played any pay to win games before. But for some reason MPQ became an exception. Go figure. I made some in game purchases, and I don't find them too brutal. Little less expensive would be cool, but whatever. That's not really what disturbs me.

------- As a new player, a few things set an alarm of and I don't think to keep playing unless I find proper information which i couldn't on google.

1. First I was wondering if the game can be hacked with popular hack engines like gamecih or else. It would be terrible to see that you invest in a game while others have it easy just with a hack.

2. I understand that it's a pay to win game, and I have nothing against it, but some mechanics offer a very bad experience for players. I am talking about the PVP mechanic where you can lose several fights, while you, yourself, are in a fight.

Now that's a deal breaker. I understand that I would lose a fight when attacked while idle. That's why they sell you shield so you can protect your points. This is a common mechanic in all games like travian. No problem with that.

But making a player lose fights in the background while he is actually in a fight? I mean, you win a fight, you're like "wow, finally", you get your victory, and suddenly, you receive a message telling you that you lost 3 fights while you were fighting... xD

I understand that very high level players will have a much powerful Rooster and will have multiple victory messages after their fights. But for new players, this message is shouting "STAY AWAY FROM PVP!!!".

3. Other than that, I find the RNG a bit too harsh. Especially the "Elite" covers. 95% of the time I got Ares. Nothing else. At least an option to immediately sell covers when they are unboxed would be nice. Each time I have to go back to the Rooster, than claim, and then find the hero, and then sell it.

--------------- This said, I think this game could be way more successful by easing up on its "pay to win" side and instead, pushing players to play more.

Maybe you should consider Blizzard's approach to your marketing strategy. The reason I say that is because the game really has a huge potential to be mainstream, and is way better than other pay to win games, and yet, its marketing doesn't reflect that quality.

The "Heroes for Hire" is a great step in the right direction.

gl hf!

JVReal

Welcome to the game!

To answer #1: Those kind of cheaters get caught, sandboxed, and banned.

#2: Yeah, nobody likes that part of PVP.  Most people stick to PVE until their roster gets a bit stronger and you aren't sitting out there looking like a delicious cupcake for people to snack on over and over again.

There are many people that play this game Free, and some who invest a little bit every month, and they are very successful at it.  I personally am free to play, and have enjoyed it for well over 900 days.  Longest I've ever played a mobile app.  Get into a good alliance, get the LINE app for your phone, and you can have lots of fun and encouraging interactions with your alliance and other MPQ players, getting advice, etc.

The value of the in-game currency is different for different people, so you'll get lots of different opinions, but the general consensus is not to buy Iso... and if you are going to buy some currency, look for a buy group to maximize the value of the purchase.

MissChinch

Its worth noting that PvE AND PvE have scaling that should handicap you to a level in which you can be competitive in both...  

PvE simply scales the level of the enemies you face, and PvP has a match making system that does a reasonable job of pitting you against players of similar roster.

There are certain PvE battles that can only be initiated if you have a specific 2*, 3* or 4* character in which vets will have an advantage over you while you're still acquiring characters.  This type of advantage will make it impossible for you to rank in the top 10-50 in some cases, but overall its not as big a deal as you would think, and its temporary.

The PvP matchmaking system is going to result in you seeing tougher enemies as you accumulate more points.  Everyone has to take into account that they can be selected as a target by multiple other people at the same time, so your team composition plays a big role...  Winning is necessary, but winning with a team that's fast is a plus, winning with a team that is scary for others to pick is great.  I'd just keep in mind that everyone has to deal with this.

With the adaptive nature of scaling and matchmaking I honestly don't see why other people cheating to accumulate more resources or progress with their roster is would be a big impact to me...  You hear of it happening in this game just like others...  Theres a rather long thread about an exploit identified that let people pull only rare 5* characters for a time, the resolution is still pending afaik.

Randomness is a big thing with this game, its just how characters are acquired...  so long as you understand that the stated odds in the game speak to the distribution not in any way amount to some kind of guarantee you'll be ok...  (The analogy would be they guarantee the coin has two sides, a heads and a tails, but they don't guarantee that you'll see 50% heads and 50% tails with your flips)

aa25

First of all, welcome to the game. To answer your question,

1. There are multiple threads that will answer this question directly/indirectly. Since it comes to spending, I would recommend you check those threads out and decide if you want to spend your money on the game and/or how much you want to spend.
2. That is certainly true for the current state of PvP. Like the post by JVReal said above mine, PvP is essentially a competition of "roster strength". Once your roster gets stronger, less likely people will attack you.
3. My answer may sound pessimistic about Elite/Heroic tokens. In my opinion, these two tokens are source for 2* characters. You can pull 3* or 4* out of them (4* only for Heroic), but the chance is very small. Their name may sound like they are higher ranked rewards, but essentially they are not.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

smkspy

Elites use to be much better, but after the first month of the bonus heroes mechanic, I (my conspiracy theory)  is that they got a secret nerf much like lightning round 2 star drops.

We_are_Venom

PvP sucks. Some people defend it against all reason, but it really is garbage. There should be a stop loss or once you hit certain reward markers you can't drop below your highest. If you hit 900, but don't hit 1200, you can be hit from 1199 down to 900 but no less. 

WelcomeDeath

I'll respond to #2.  The old "don't let me be hit more than once per battle".  Been discussed many, many times.  The issue is you could start a battle now and come back 12 hours later and finish it to ensure youll only take one hit.  Actually, if you got a friend involved you could both queue each other up and start the fight and just retreat to one another hours later for free shields (I assume once one person begins hitting you that you become invisible to other players, otherwise how would it work?).  So You could just go all event without shielding.  This would cause further issues because if enough people did it, there would be no targets left to hit for points.  I get the frustration, but it's all a part of pvp.  Those hits means it's time to shield.

The one other thing I somewhat take issue to is people telling players not to pvp unless their rosyer is at "x" level.  The way the mechanics of mmr work, you cannot be found and hit by higher rosters until they have run out of qs at their strength and you can't find fights worth anything if nobody at your level is out (or fights end up being too difficult).  We should encourage *more* players to pvp at all levels and it would be easier to make progression points for lower rosters. (Remember, all hits below 1000 points make more points than they take away).  If more players pushed at all levels, pvp would be in a much better state. 

Jaedenkaal

smkspy said:

Elites use to be much better, but after the first month of the bonus heroes mechanic, I (my conspiracy theory)  is that they got a secret nerf much like lightning round 2 star drops.

Nah, I still get a bunch of bonus heroes from elite tokens. It's still only a 5% chance, so long streaks are pretty possible.

aa25

Welcome Death said:

The one other thing I somewhat take issue to is people telling players not to pvp unless their rosyer is at "x" level.  The way the mechanics of mmr work, you cannot be found and hit by higher rosters until they have run out of qs at their strength and you can't find fights worth anything if nobody at your level is out (or fights end up being too difficult).  We should encourage *more* players to pvp at all levels and it would be easier to make progression points for lower rosters. (Remember, all hits below 1000 points make more points than they take away).  If more players pushed at all levels, pvp would be in a much better state. 

I totally agree with you on this point that this is how the PvP is supposed to work. Especially the point that the more matches below 1k makes the slice more juicy. However, it is not written or hinted anywhere. The parts that I I think are the issues are

1) when at one point once you break the unknown ceiling that allow people with higher roster to q you. Once you hit that point, you will be literally slaughter back down. (Because at higher up, people shield, and can't q each other that much.) If you know how MMR/floating point work, you can definitely avoid and/or minimize that, but, again, it is unknown to most of the new players.

2) when you need to win 2-3 matches against a team of equal strength as your own roster, or sometime a bit higher, but a loss from late climbers with higher roster can cost you 50-75 pts.

These two points are very discouraging for new players to play and go high in PvP. My experience with people with 3* roster is that they found it is less fun for them when these happen. I would love to recommend people to play PvP, but I can't convince myself that I'm introducing a "fun" game to the players because of these two scenarios.

The first step to fix this is probably making the point loss (just loss, not gain) also depends on the roster strength difference between the participants.

Disclaimer: I'm a 4* player and I've been playing PvP since they made the MMR change around the same time as they changed the PvE format.

mega ghost

If I have the free time, I always play PvP. Not for placement, but for progression rewards. Assuming you're not in the lowest SCL ranks, you get an Elite token at 200, a Heroic at 300, 50 HP at 400, and 10 CP at 575. If I'm having an easy time, I often push for 650 for another Heroic token. It's the quickest route to CP. and worth it for that alone. On rare occasion, if I see a 4* cover I really want at 900 I'll also push for that and use some HP on shields to get there. This only became possible once I had a solid roster, however.

And then, of course, there's season progression rewards. Playing for placement in this game is an awful experience that will burn you our pretty quickly. Progression is much more forgiving and reliable.

DrDevilDinosaur

I thought that players who spent some money don't get banned if they cheat. That's what happened the last two times they talked about it here on the forum.

smkspy

Jaedenkaal said:

smkspy said:

Elites use to be much better, but after the first month of the bonus heroes mechanic, I (my conspiracy theory)  is that they got a secret nerf much like lightning round 2 star drops.

Nah, I still get a bunch of bonus heroes from elite tokens. It's still only a 5% chance, so long streaks are pretty possible.

I mean 3 stars in general from elite tokens. What was once my  3 star source has become my 2 star farm replacing decreased lightning round drops. 

WelcomeDeath

aa25 said:

Welcome Death said:

The one other thing I somewhat take issue to is people telling players not to pvp unless their rosyer is at "x" level.  The way the mechanics of mmr work, you cannot be found and hit by higher rosters until they have run out of qs at their strength and you can't find fights worth anything if nobody at your level is out (or fights end up being too difficult).  We should encourage *more* players to pvp at all levels and it would be easier to make progression points for lower rosters. (Remember, all hits below 1000 points make more points than they take away).  If more players pushed at all levels, pvp would be in a much better state. 

I totally agree with you on this point that this is how the PvP is supposed to work. Especially the point that the more matches below 1k makes the slice more juicy. However, it is not written or hinted anywhere. The parts that I I think are the issues are

1) when at one point once you break the unknown ceiling that allow people with higher roster to q you. Once you hit that point, you will be literally slaughter back down. (Because at higher up, people shield, and can't q each other that much.) If you know how MMR/floating point work, you can definitely avoid and/or minimize that, but, again, it is unknown to most of the new players.

2) when you need to win 2-3 matches against a team of equal strength as your own roster, or sometime a bit higher, but a loss from late climbers with higher roster can cost you 50-75 pts.

These two points are very discouraging for new players to play and go high in PvP. My experience with people with 3* roster is that they found it is less fun for them when these happen. I would love to recommend people to play PvP, but I can't convince myself that I'm introducing a "fun" game to the players because of these two scenarios.

The first step to fix this is probably making the point loss (just loss, not gain) also depends on the roster strength difference between the participants.

Disclaimer: I'm a 4* player and I've been playing PvP since they made the MMR change around the same time as they changed the PvE format.

Ayasugi-san

Welcome Death said:

I'll respond to #2.  The old "don't let me be hit more than once per battle".  Been discussed many, many times.  The issue is you could start a battle now and come back 12 hours later and finish it to ensure youll only take one hit.  Actually, if you got a friend involved you could both queue each other up and start the fight and just retreat to one another hours later for free shields (I assume once one person begins hitting you that you become invisible to other players, otherwise how would it work?). 

You could? I thought the game automatically made you retreat from matches when the app went idle, and it definitely would well before 12 hours had passed.

Pants1000

Regarding your comment about getting 2* Ares all the time, I highly recommend farming 2* for the champ rewards.  When your Ares is 144, sell it and start a new one. Some people like to start the replacement before the first hits 144, and some people like to champ the replacement before selling the 144.  No matter how you do it, you'll get more 3*, HP, CP, and heroic tokens, and the ISO is about even compared to selling them individually.

TPF Alexis

Ayasugi-san said:

Welcome Death said:

I'll respond to #2.  The old "don't let me be hit more than once per battle".  Been discussed many, many times.  The issue is you could start a battle now and come back 12 hours later and finish it to ensure youll only take one hit.  Actually, if you got a friend involved you could both queue each other up and start the fight and just retreat to one another hours later for free shields (I assume once one person begins hitting you that you become invisible to other players, otherwise how would it work?). 

You could? I thought the game automatically made you retreat from matches when the app went idle, and it definitely would well before 12 hours had passed.

I haven't done it with PvP, but there have been PvE matches where I got called away in the middle, put my phone to sleep, and came back hours later able to resume the match.

More generally, I'm also a fairly new Player, and I mostly just stick to PvE. I dip into each PvP, but just climb to 400 or 575 (depending on how easy it's going), and then usually just let it go. My general strategy is to join a Slice when it's got about 24 hours left or so. At that point, there are usually enough people in that I can get some reasonably juicy matches, but most of the hyper-competitive people are in brackets that have already flipped, or are waiting to join at the very end. At the very start of a slice, there aren't very many Players in there, so there aren't a whole lot of points available, and the Players who are in there tend to be the really gung-ho ones. The last 12 hours or so, and especially the last 4, are just brutal, with late climbers going for anything they can get. I actually often pick slices that will end in the middle of the night, so that I don't even get tempted to play during the end.

Alsmir

MissChinch said:

Its worth noting that PvE AND PvE have scaling that should handicap you to a level in which you can be competitive in both...  

PvE simply scales the level of the enemies you face, and PvP has a match making system that does a reasonable job of pitting you against players of similar roster.

That made my day. Good joke, mate.

smkspy said:

Jaedenkaal said:

smkspy said:

Elites use to be much better, but after the first month of the bonus heroes mechanic, I (my conspiracy theory)  is that they got a secret nerf much like lightning round 2 star drops.

Nah, I still get a bunch of bonus heroes from elite tokens. It's still only a 5% chance, so long streaks are pretty possible.

I mean 3 stars in general from elite tokens. What was once my  3 star source has become my 2 star farm replacing decreased lightning round drops. 

I also suspect a hidden nerf. I used to pull 3* from elites quite often, but not anymore. I might even start making notes about my pulls. So far I'm at 2x 3* from 16 elite pulls.

Starfury

Ayasugi-san said:

Welcome Death said:

I'll respond to #2.  The old "don't let me be hit more than once per battle".  Been discussed many, many times.  The issue is you could start a battle now and come back 12 hours later and finish it to ensure youll only take one hit.  Actually, if you got a friend involved you could both queue each other up and start the fight and just retreat to one another hours later for free shields (I assume once one person begins hitting you that you become invisible to other players, otherwise how would it work?). 

You could? I thought the game automatically made you retreat from matches when the app went idle, and it definitely would well before 12 hours had passed.

I think it only retreats if the app gets booted out of memory. No idea if the actual retreat happens when restart the app or if it happens sometime after the game has been closed.

Pessi

nitefox1337 said:

2. I understand that it's a pay to win game, and I have nothing against it, but some mechanics offer a very bad experience for players. I am talking about the PVP mechanic where you can lose several fights, while you, yourself, are in a fight.

Now that's a deal breaker. I understand that I would lose a fight when attacked while idle. That's why they sell you shield so you can protect your points. This is a common mechanic in all games like travian. No problem with that.

But making a player lose fights in the background while he is actually in a fight? I mean, you win a fight, you're like "wow, finally", you get your victory, and suddenly, you receive a message telling you that you lost 3 fights while you were fighting... xD

I understand that very high level players will have a much powerful Rooster and will have multiple victory messages after their fights. But for new players, this message is shouting "STAY AWAY FROM PVP!!!".

From my perspective in when I had started playing PvP was a no go. I started to push to 300 points and stop in the last hour. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I didn't stress about getting higher. You should then be able to push in the SHIELD sim to top your points to the 4k point, where you gain a heroic 10 pack. It was this that really pushed my progression.

Coubii

2) It happen and it's quite frustrating yeah. But you can mitigate this. Clearance is one first option provided by the game. For now you are probably in a small clearance level, where in theory only beginner are. When you will have a bigger roaster you will be able to choose your clearance to mitigate this.
Honestly I don't really like PVP, I only play the clock, starting 1 hour before event end and hope to be in a new bucket. When it happen, you can win pretty good placement with only few points.

3) Use all the covers you need/can. Then use the filter from your reward cache to select a type of rarity. 2 starts for your Ares problem. And sell them all at once.
But I would suggest you to expand your roaster to get him and eventually champ him. He will be in your best buddies for a while.

the game really has a huge potential to be mainstream

For me, it's already mainstream for 3 years now !

Quebbster

mexus said:

But I would suggest you to expand your roaster to get him and eventually champ him. He will be in your best buddies for a while.

Ares is the only 2* I still have in my roster, 
he clears the DDQ essentials on his own. Smack boom bang.

Ares is awesome, but a two-star farm is even better. A neverending stream of Resources instead of wasted covers.