A response to all the recent changes

Unknown

So most of you around here know me. Been around for quite a long time now. Haven't been posting a lot lately due to college and helping build an MPQ empire amongst other things. Figured it's time to blab a bit.

Overall I feel like the devs are just kicking ****. They made alliances which typically tend to make games more fun, and for me it has. They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance. Make a forum account, play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week. Who has been complaining about this exactly? We have 100 people, many with less than 100 days with average rosters that are growing steadily because they have veterans like me there to help and advise them. It's been a strong positive for many people.

We have asked for shield training to be revamped. It has been fixed and with the addition of seasons will be a huge inflow if rewards. You can easily grind to 1000-2000 once a month on shield pvp and soak up all those progression rewards. It adds that place to play casually when you ain't feelin the current events and just wanna do a few matches but still profit a little. It is now what it was supposed to be to begin with. It also puts a slight fix on tanking and with mmr recently getting better that's a good thing.

We have continually asked to stop nerfing and start introducing stronger covers. They have listened. Black panther. Lazy Thor and cap. Falcon. Psylocke. Every1 they are giving out are good stronger covers. They have really been upping their game on character creation. The only thing missing here is fixing a few old characters like rag and Loki and others that need 3rd powers or other tweaks.

Rewards need to be more competitive at top though. #1 needs an advantage for being #1. I think this would be a better rewards tier for alliances really

#1-250hp / 5000 ISO / 3*
2-3- 250hp / 2500iso / 3*
4-10- 100hp / 2500 ISO / 3*
11-25 100hp / 1500isov/ 3*

All in all though things have been going great. Any1 who wants to complain probably had just had some bad luck or had grown tired of the game. The only thing the recent changes have hurt is free time and that's not the games fault if you don't have enough self control to handle **** irl before you sit down to play. All they are guilty of is putting out a great game in a good environment that can be played at a reasonable price. Good job.

Unknown

All good points except an extra 2500 iso is not a big advantage to finish first really. You could earn that in half a LR. maybe if it was 300 hp instead and 2-3 got 200?

Unknown

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

All good points except an extra 2500 iso is not a big advantage to finish first really. You could earn that in half a LR. maybe if it was 300 hp instead?

Maybe toss in a few heroics? Just a distinct advantage that's not an unlimited supply of shields.

HailMary

Good points all around.

Psykopathic wrote:

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

All good points except an extra 2500 iso is not a big advantage to finish first really. You could earn that in half a LR. maybe if it was 300 hp instead?

Maybe toss in a few heroics? Just a distinct advantage that's not an unlimited supply of shields.

A Heroic 10-pack would spur progression for low/mid-tier players while keeping the value proposition roughly the same for high-level players. Noting that, it probably wouldn't be a great incentive as a differentiator between #1 and #2-3. Perhaps a Heroic 10-pack instead of Iso for 1, 2-3, and 4-10, accompanied by 300-200-100 HP, respectively.

Unknown

honestly though, just imagine how much more fun and rich of an experience this game would be if they just took the time to rebalance weak champs and give third abilities to those who need it.

suddenly we have bagman, bullseye, mhawkeye, loki, rag, xforcewolvie, doctor doom, bag woman, loki and moonstone to play with. we've suddenly made 10 more playable characters!

Dauthi

Agreed. I feel like every time I raise a point it gets addressed almost immediately. The major ones I fought for being nerfing Rags and nerfing 500hp rewards for the first place alliance. Thank you for listening and having an fair and even hand devs. All money I have invested into the game I feel is rightly owed to them.

Twysta

I would agree but their treatment of PvE completely throws a spanner in the works and seems to have a faint smell of cabbage.
They done a lot right, but in my opinion have made a lot of blunders too. They have on occassion realized this though and made moves to sort it which is nice.

Unknown

Personally, the PvE progression rewards changes have hit me the hardest. They used to be a good source of getting a 3* cover, sometimes even multiple. But in recent PvE events, the progression rewards have been unreachable or limited to a single 3* at highest progression level.

Unknown

Yeah, fits and starts. I will say that the introduction of seasons in PVP looks like a great change. It's done more to bolster my enthusiasm for the game than any other change in a long time. I'm coming to terms with alliances, though I wish they weren't such a dominant part of the game.

It's strange that PvE is so jacked up; it always felt like it was the best part of the game before, but scaling has done some ugly things to it. If scaling + rubber banding = a failure in attainable progression rewards, then one or both of those things need to be revisited. Still, I'm at least mostly confident that those things will improve.

In general, this has been a well-managed game. Next month, though, if they up the alliance size to 25, I'll immediately take this compliment back and replace it with a lot of vitriol.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance. Make a forum account, play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week. Who has been complaining about this exactly?

I can answer this question! Probably the people who aren't getting those covers!

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

It's strange that PvE is so jacked up; it always felt like it was the best part of the game before

I echo this sentiment. My favorite part of MPQ used to be PvE, but now it's PvP. I agree that lots of great changes have been made as well, but when the portion of the game that demands the most time to compete is the least fun mode to participate in, that's concerning.

Unknown

I'm with you guys. PvE is a proper chore these days, my day job is more fun than the job of grinding against high level opponents.

Unknown

Pylos wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance. Make a forum account, play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week. Who has been complaining about this exactly?

I can answer this question! Probably the people who aren't getting those covers!

Which is 80%-90% of the player population, I'm guessing.

Is this a troll statement or are you serious?
"They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance...., play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week.

HailMary

MikeHock wrote:

Pylos wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance. Make a forum account, play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week. Who has been complaining about this exactly?

I can answer this question! Probably the people who aren't getting those covers!

Which is 80%-90% of the player population, I'm guessing.

The third cover used to be a Top 5 PVP reward, which translates to 2.5% of participating players.

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

Pylos wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance. Make a forum account, play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week. Who has been complaining about this exactly?

I can answer this question! Probably the people who aren't getting those covers!

Which is 80%-90% of the player population, I'm guessing.

Is this a troll statement or are you serious?
"They made the alliance cover incredibly abundant and all you gotta do is join a 1/2 decent alliance...., play the game for 2 months, join an alliance and then you get a 3* cover handed to you 3-4 times a week.

Completely serious. As I said, we have 100 members who all get multiple 3* covers a week for alliance placement. I can assure you the vast majority of our roster aren't spenders or super elite players. If you try hard enough it's not that difficult to find a good alliance to get easy rewards.

If you aren't a serious enough player to manage a 1/2 decent alliance or don't wanna take the time to then you probably don't need the 3* cover very badly or shouldn't be worrying about it. Casuals shouldn't expect to get every reward. If you are a serious player and can't you aren't trying.

Unknown

Yeah, I'm a very capable player with a deep roster and a good record, but I don't get most alliance covers. I made an alliance with my friends, some of whom are pretty casual, and as a result I'm earning considerably fewer covers than I used to. I've bitten the bullet and expanded the alliance/scouted for new recruits, but I was pretty peeved that alliance competition became so important so quickly.

There are probably a decent number of people in my position; people who are far more competitive than their friends but who would still like the social aspect of alliances to feel authentic. Really, if they'd just made alliance rewards progression-based instead of strictly competitive (like everything else in this game) it wouldn't have been an issue. And, honestly, that's the real problem with the game: very little of the content isn't played against someone else, and that constant competition can be both off-putting and draining. (After all, would scaling and rubber-banding be issues in a non-competitive PvE experience? These labyrinthine balancing systems wouldn't even need to exist.)

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Yeah, I'm a very capable player with a deep roster and a good record, but I don't get most alliance covers. I made an alliance with my friends, some of whom are pretty casual, and as a result I'm earning considerably fewer covers than I used to. I've bitten the bullet and expanded the alliance/scouted for new recruits, but I was pretty peeved that alliance competition became so important so quickly.

There are probably a decent number of people in my position; people who are far more competitive than their friends but who would still like the social aspect of alliances to feel authentic. Really, if they'd just made alliance rewards progression-based instead of strictly competitive (like everything else in this game) it wouldn't have been an issue. And, honestly, that's the real problem with the game: very little of the content isn't played against someone else, and that constant competition can be both off-putting and draining. (After all, would scaling and rubber-banding be issues in a non-competitive PvE experience? These labyrinthine balancing systems wouldn't even need to exist.)

Everything you've said here speaks to my situation perfectly.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

If you aren't a serious enough player to manage a 1/2 decent alliance or don't wanna take the time to then you probably don't need the 3* cover very badly or shouldn't be worrying about it. Casuals shouldn't expect to get every reward. If you are a serious player and can't you aren't trying.

Is this the SPCA? because I see a whole box of tinykittens

The whole reward structure is based on relative performance (competitive), not absolute performance. Glad you quantified the overall number of serious player as 10 in 1000 players (as only the top 10 gets both the covers... with the corollary that if you are in a top 10 slot, you know how this works and are in an alliance, and the top 10 positioning, interestingly enough, adds points to the alliance to greatly increase the chance of third cover)

anything further I add to his will degenerate into an incomprehensible rant incorporating phrases like, "entitlement", "high horse" and the ever popular, "let them eat cake"

'nuff said

Unknown

Vinny J wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

If you aren't a serious enough player to manage a 1/2 decent alliance or don't wanna take the time to then you probably don't need the 3* cover very badly or shouldn't be worrying about it. Casuals shouldn't expect to get every reward. If you are a serious player and can't you aren't trying.

Is this the SPCA? because I see a whole box of tinykittens

The whole reward structure is based on relative performance (competitive), not absolute performance. Glad you quantified the overall number of serious player as 10 in 1000 players (as only the top 10 gets both the covers... with the corollary that if you are in a top 10 slot, you know how this works and are in an alliance, and the top 10 positioning, interestingly enough, adds points to the alliance to greatly increase the chance of third cover)

anything further I add to his will degenerate into an incomprehensible rant incorporating phrases like, "entitlement", "high horse" and the ever popular, "let them eat cake"

'nuff said

I'm only speaking of alliance rewards covers. Not covers won individually.

_RiO_

Psykopathic wrote:

All in all though things have been going great. Any1 who wants to complain probably had just had some bad luck or had grown tired of the game. The only thing the recent changes have hurt is free time and that's not the games fault if you don't have enough self control to handle tinykitty irl before you sit down to play. All they are guilty of is putting out a great game in a good environment that can be played at a reasonable price. Good job.

-1; completely disagree.
In their disclosure series on Venturebeat, the publisher themselves have admitted that 'the rich get richer' is a problem with alliances and that at the moment alliance rewards really only work for the top players and are frustrating the others. They have acknowledged that they hope to fix this at one point, but for the moment are content with just giving the vocal hardcore players a good time by providing them some challenge at the top of the foodchain.

DD-The-Mighty

Cool story OP.
Surely IceIX and D3 will take you to the prom now.

You know what would really show up those whining, entitled, non cover-winning-peasants? Quitting 5DeadlyGoons and joining some random nonforum/top10 "1/2 decent Alliance". Show em how easy-peasy lemon squeasy it is.

All that blathering... and you still get your butts kicked by S.H.I.E.L.D. and they claim they aren't even trying.