This Game Isn't Fun Anymore

Unknown

Yep, I've never been more frustrated by PVE than now. I'm less and less inclined to even play the events.
Luckily PVP is still giving me some kicks.

Unknown

I totally agree with The Unwise One, dlaw008 and NighteyesGrisu, basically I just want to PLAY!
When you add together the community scaling, health pack neccessity, event end times (im in the UK) and the **** rewards you stand to get for a battle (20 ISO!!) there isnt really any reasonable way I can possibly compete for the higher rankings. But to be honest that doesnt really concern me right now as my roster only has two maxed lvl 85's with another 2 or 3 getting there so I dont consider myself to be a top ranked player yet anyway, what does bother me is that the fun of getting to that top ranked roster is being eroded day by day.

I refuse to take part in battles against enemies way above me in levels, either in PVE or PVP, not through a fear of defeat but because it is not fun. As dlaw008 so eloquently put it I enjoy wiping out the enemy team with a Wind Storm or taking down the enemy Hulk with Adamantium Slash, it feels like I am playing with Superheroes and all me effort in levelling these characters has been worth it. When a HAMMER sniper can one shot my guys then theres no fun, esp as stopping him is down to the luck of falling tiles (most of the time). It is not fun to face enemy characters that way above the levels we can take them to as Players, why should Norman Osborn have a lvl 230 Daken when we can only field him at lvl 69?

Community scaling is the worst idea ever. Ever. The whole concept is counter-productive and anti-player. Now i realise that everybody in the bracket is competing for prizes so its not totally a single player game but as long as it is PVE it sure plays like a single player game so even if everybody else is aceing the nodes it doesn't mean that I am or that my game should be affected by their progress. If this concept does make sense to someone and they can explain I will gladly listen, right now i cant imagine a scenario where that idea was even conceived!

I would be perfectly happy for the game to scale with my advancement to some degree, I am not saying I want to face lvl 30 enemies all the time. After one run through these simulator nodes, eg, the levels of the enemies should increase tomake each subsequent clearance that bit trickier. And clearly the starting levels of enemies should differ depending on the strength of the player, just dont start me with three lvl 60-80 guys and then get worse!

I think that covers most of my issues, and hopefully I have explained myself clearly!! Course, it matters not, as the Devs have never listened to criticism of the game that would involve a change that doesnt increase their revenue. I hope they prove us wrong this time.

TLDR- Stop community scaling, decrease health pack cooldown times, better rewards to make difficult battles worth it.

Unknown

Yup. This game has become like work. It is not fun..

I don't enjoy PVE anymore. I do not understand how un-maxed 2* teams can take top positions in my main brackets. With huge margins mind you - while i have to slog against lvl 395 opponents which is more about luck than skill. And the fact that i MUST play at fixed intervals during the day, instead of when i want too - how is this not like work?

I don't enjoy PVP anymore too . Army of One .. Again ?? How many gajillion times are they going to rerun the same event?

And there used to be a weak attempt at a storyline....its been so long since the last episode, i totally lost track of the story.

And this season thing - are you guys really excited about the 30 day Season events? I really got a bad feeling about Nick Fury as a prize......

I really wanted to express myself at length like TheUnwiseOne, But i just realized, i don't care anymore... I used to be passionate about this game and sharing my thoughts on the forum. Even this feels like work

Unknown

I'm still okay with the game. It's less about 'fun' and more about endurance and patience to me. Like a simcity (or Animal Crossing) game I've invested 1000 hours into. But my scaling isn't screwed up, so that can drastically effect your opinion on the game. I know during the TaT screwup, I was seriously considering deleting the game.

With summer rolling around, I'm sure a lot more people are going to be 'jumping' off this treadmill.

daveomite

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

Fluffyudders wrote:

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I don't have a huge problem with scaling. The game punishes players who take a brute force approach by playing every node to death

Play smarter? Well for the last few PVE'S i have done nothing but the essential nodes and only do 2 run through of those nodes as well. Sometimes 3. But yet my scaling still rises. I cant play any "smarter"

i don't grind every node, i don't hit every refresh and i wait for rubberbanding. There is nothing else for me to do to make it easier. Unfortunately while you have yourself don't have a problem with scaling, others do despite playing smart.

If the developers could just explain it once and for all then those who are stuck in mmr hell could try and escape it. Barring not doing the next couple pve's i don't think i can do anything else to help myself.

I completely agree with what Unwise is saying. For some people, they don't really seem affected. But for a lot of us, we are, and there's really no logical reason as to why.

I don't grind nodes either, and only do one pass to start, then only one or two passes on the essentials each refresh. That's it. Yet, I STILL got handed a 395 Bullseye 1, 2 & 3 plus various other 395's with a whole ton of 300+ nodes in the Hunt. Why? I have no idea. But it's certainly not because I'm grinding my eyeballs out hitting each node down to 1. And no, I was not using Spidey in the Hunt until the last 2 days, AFTER I got my first 395 nodes, as it was the only way my team could remotely have a chance at that point.

In this event, in round 2 hard, which I haven't even started... SIM01 is already at 177. It's only going to go up. Ad no, it's no where near as bad as a 395 ares/bullseye, etc. - but Juggs, Rags and Storm at that level - that's going to be a fun one when I start the hard sub.

Oh, and I don't even have one 141 character either, and only one is over 100.

user311

My PVE started out easy, but by the second night my easy was basically the same as the hard. I don't have anyone over 100 so Im not seeing 230s+, but I have seen quite a few 170s. It is hard I agree. At those levels using OBW to heal either isnt enough (less than 700 with CD tiles) or works against you in increasing the scaling. How can you design characters to heal, but then punish players for using those abilities? That said, PVP is still fun.

Unknown

For me, it's not scaling, it's still that due to rubberbanding you need to set aside an hour at noon or midnight 8 or 9 times a week to be competitive, and playing at NOT those times just hurts you. (And as our European friends will point out, it's even worse for them.)

Willis

I'm new to these forums but I've been playing for some time and thought I'd give my 2 cents (On day 84 here)

My scaling isn't in the nightmare zone but I've had nodes with enemies at level 230 before thanks to community scaling. Things being made harder without me doing anything is really messed up. The worst case I've seen was during the recent hunt event where people were hitting a wall half way through the event due to community scaling myself included. I don't mind a challenge or things getting progressively harder as an event goes on, but there's a line between a challenge and grinding down mountains of HP praying the board is nice enough to not let them get enough AP to one shot you.

This whole scaling business is just one big headache that only makes things harder on everyone. I may not be affected as badly as some of the people here but it has caused me problems where I tend to skip fights with enemies over 100 levels higher than my own. I can certainly beat these enemies, but the effort needed isn't worth the reward, and with what seems to be rewards getting nerfed it's only going to cause more problems.

kensterr

guys, IceIX mentioned that D3/Demiurge doesn't take reviews in the app store(s) seriously as they rely more on feedback from the forums and social media.

So those who are active in social media like Twitter/Facebook/Instagram etc can just post about how much they hate scaling and hashtag the post with #mpq #marvel #d3 #demiurge #ragequit ... see if it gains enough momentum for the bigwigs at Demiurge to finally take notice that we hate their scaling. Just an idea

Unknown

Railing against scaling isn't going to do much. It's entire purpose is to push more people against a paywall, newer and older users alike. That's just the cold reality of F2P gaming.

So, the only real recourse you have is to stop playing or play in a way that you minimize your annoyances with the system.

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

guys, IceIX mentioned that D3/Demiurge doesn't take reviews in the app store(s) seriously as they rely more on feedback from the forums and social media.

Really? They rely on these forums for feedback? Huh, you'd think people would be more vocal here if they thought they were being heard.

Seriously though, I'm kind of in agreement with most people here. I've pretty much shut down my alt account, and I've stopped trying for the optimal play to get top placements in PvE. What I've learned is that I can actually still score both individual covers playing willy-nilly throughout the day while still avoiding horrific scaling. My biggest gripe though is that the game is so 1-dimensional compared to earlier PQ installments. I believe it was best summed up by:

Tony Stark wrote:

There is nothing except this. There's no art opening, no charity, nothing to sign. There's the next mission, and nothing else.

There needs to be a non-competitive alternate progression path (something truly PvE) to let people sit out of the main competition, but still enjoy the game. I've done my best (and there are many others as well) to litter the suggestions forums with alternate game modes such as boost crafting, building your headquarters/lair/hideout, follower recruitment, vehicles, alternate costumes, etc.

I like seeing the new characters regularly, and I like competing to be one of the few to consistently end the release event at 1/1/1, but without something deeper to tie it all together, there's very little scenery left on this treadmill to enjoy.

kensterr

Riggy wrote:

kensterr wrote:

guys, IceIX mentioned that D3/Demiurge doesn't take reviews in the app store(s) seriously as they rely more on feedback from the forums and social media.

Really? They rely on these forums for feedback? Huh, you'd think people would be more vocal here if they thought they were being heard.

Here you go:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2687&p=40858

Tharos

I totally agree with TheUnwiseOne.
I am "only" on day 110, and really played outside the prologue several weeks later. But I used to play a lot, and more pve than pvp.
Now, I barely play pve events, the main reasons being:

1. It is no longer fun. I start pve events against level 50 (too easy to be fun, but at least it is fast). I usually end pve events against levels 240-270. How am I supposed to do this with my 2* roster? I only got a punisher above level 85 two days ago.

2. Rubberbanding force me to play less. I am an european player. I can't wake up early to play on the last hour of an event. When an event is supposed to be "european-friendly", I am at work, so I can't play for the final push. And you can't be competitive without playing on the final hours of an event. I tryied to wake up earlier, but I'm exhausted of doing this. I tryied to play a lot during free time by clearing nodes over and over, but even if I reach #1 with a lot of points before #2, a few hours later, I finish the event only at top 50, only because my free time doesn't match the hours of play designed by the developpers. And as a side effect, because I played a lot to compensate by hours of play, my pve rating raised a lot. If only there were a way to remain competitive by playing when you want!

3. The rewards for this sickness are non-sense. I usually cleared nodes only once for the "first time reward" and the occasional 500iso/token. I suppose now that the fist time reward are gone, I will play pve even less.


It is really sad, because I used to like this game, play a lot, and spend quite some money in it for thanking the devs.

Now, I play quite exclusively pvp: at least it is fair, the rewards are nice, and I am having a lot of fun. And pvp have shields, so I make my final push when I can, and shield while I am sleeping.
And of course, I no longer spend any money in this game. I no longer feel the need to thank the developpers for forcing me to play less that I want.

I hope they will never screw pvp by introducing some kind of rubberbanding in it:)

Unknown

Rubberbanding is the spawn of Satan. It's only ever useful in 2-4 player multiplayer games to introduce some excitement when one player is far ahead of the others. In a massively multiplayer game like this there is no reason to have rubberbanding because there will always be enough people involved to make things competitive.

1. But doesn't it become a grindfest otherwise? That's why you have limited healthpacks and recharging. Eventually your ability to grind is limited by your available health and roster. Sure, people with bigger rosters would have an advantage but it's an advantage they've earned. If you can't earn advantage then why progress in the game?

2. But don't healer types if played properly negate the healthpack issue? Yes, that's an issue that needs to be looked at as it also has an impact on scaling and many other issues. People love Spidey and OBW but they 'break' the game in so many ways it's hard not to question whether their healing powers should be quite so potent.

3. What about the guys who can only play occassionally? I'm actually one of those guys and, guess what, we know that there's a price to pay for having other stuff in our lives. Once again, the natural mechanic of health regen (especially with higher level 3*characters) means you have to take breaks anyway, unless you have a magical roster of 30 x lv100+ characters. If you have got a magical roster of 30 x lv100+ chars then you're probably going to get hit by scaling at some point, and hell... if you've put that much into the game you deserve advantage

Rubberbanding for me, and most of Europe (which is a lot of people tbh) means either getting up at 4-5am regularly, destroying our sleep paterns and potentially creating serious relationship issues, or it means playing during the late afternoon when many of us are at work. How the hell is that a good idea? Rubberbanding might be convenient for some, but generally speaking it's a cheap and highly broken mechnic that devalues skill and hard work.

Unknown

Rubberbanding is actually good. It means you don't have to play as much to do well. Without rubberbanding, the only people who would ever win are the crazies who clear everything every 12 hours. That is not a positive outcome.

Scaling is the thing that saps the fun out of the game. It makes the matches much longer and harder, and potentially impossible, but not any more interesting or fun.

Unknown

Rajjeq wrote:

Rubberbanding is actually good. It means you don't have to play as much to do well. Without rubberbanding, the only people who would ever win are the crazies who clear everything every 12 hours. That is not a positive outcome.

Which is why, as DrUnpleasant and Phantron have pointed out, the ability to infinite heal in battles or prologue if you have Spidey and OBW makes some of the game's biggest problems unsolvable

mags1587

Riggy wrote:

There needs to be a non-competitive alternate progression path (something truly PvE) to let people sit out of the main competition, but still enjoy the game. I've done my best (and there are many others as well) to litter the suggestions forums with alternate game modes such as boost crafting, building your headquarters/lair/hideout, follower recruitment, vehicles, alternate costumes, etc.

They need to expand the prologue. I would pay HP for another chapter. I just want to beat up on some teams and get some ISO/boost rewards without worrying about my placement or that the enemy levels will jump into the stratosphere depending on how I play.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

Rubberbanding is actually good. It means you don't have to play as much to do well. Without rubberbanding, the only people who would ever win are the crazies who clear everything every 12 hours. That is not a positive outcome.

Which is why, as DrUnpleasant and Phantron have pointed out, the ability to infinite heal in battles or prologue if you have Spidey and OBW makes some of the game's biggest problems unsolvable

I'm thinking that " the crazies" who clear everything every 12 hours should win, every time. (I'm not one btw)
If someone is investing so much time, why shouldn't they win? And why shouldn't someone with a maxed roster be able to do this?

The real answer to this games problem is that the ai is terrible and needs to be fixed. If the ai was smart enough to see a propper order for the skills on its team, prioritize colours etc, you wouldn't need scaling beyond regular max character lvl. Scaling is only there to compensate for a poorly controlled opponent.

Granted this would take an inordinate amount of coding and testing, which is probably impossible with their current business model, but maybe they could farm out this task to another studio, spend some of that ARPADAU money. That way, they could continue with nee content, while the ai got improved.

If nothing else, pve has static enemies and those teams could be specifically coded based on their team composition. This wouldn't help in pvp, which would be way tougher to code because of variable team comps. Of course coding each enemy team in a pve would require time and thus we'd see more breaks between pve's both new and repeats (repeats would still take time because of coding new teams).

Without improvement to the ai, scaling is the only means to make the opponents challenging.

So these are my thoughts on scaling and the ai, comments?

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

Riggy wrote:

There needs to be a non-competitive alternate progression path (something truly PvE) to let people sit out of the main competition, but still enjoy the game. I've done my best (and there are many others as well) to litter the suggestions forums with alternate game modes such as boost crafting, building your headquarters/lair/hideout, follower recruitment, vehicles, alternate costumes, etc.

They need to expand the prologue. I would pay HP for another chapter. I just want to beat up on some teams and get some ISO/boost rewards without worrying about my placement or that the enemy levels will jump into the stratosphere depending on how I play.

The problem with expanding the prologue is that the actual story is being added via the competitive episodes. A lot of people would love to see those episodes added as non-competitive PvE rewards (with reduced rewards, to fit the current business model). The counter-argument to that solution is that the episodes get re-run, so they'd run out of content faster if they couldn't re-use the episodes. Of course, the counter-counter-argument is that they already run the prologue as heroic, so something similar could be done if they needed to re-use that PvE content.

Adding a non-linear (i.e. non-storyline) option for alternative progression rewards allows for the story content to be advanced (or re-used) independently of any other content.

kensterr

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/ ... s/?a=99219

Hopw that Marvel can find a developer to make their AAA Avengers title soon!