Can we talk about the Grind?

GurlBYE

The fun is supposed to be expanding your roster etc the game play has remained stale, and increasing the amount of clears needed for maximum progression last year was... certainly an interesting choice, even if it was only one clear

You're more likely to move on to another game you enjoy and play this one for less time than for any large structural game play changes to happen.

The game is ENTIRELY reliant on your inner collector and gambler being more important itches to scratch than your need for engagement.

Most other threads and comments about the grind aspect will literally even go as far as telling you they do other things while they do their clears instead of seeking enjoyment.

And god help you if you play for top 10 and decide to have obligations outside of the game.
It's less game time and more second job to fund your addiction to collection. 

LifeofAgony

I’m over 1300 days and my interest has dropped significantly since the release of 5* gambit.  Pvp is an absolute chore at this point that I have to force myself to do.  PvE while more enjoyable, is still at the end of the day ridiculously stale.  I used to enjoy the chase of new toons but since Gambit has decimated the slightest hope of utilizing the new releases, I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

ZootSax

GurlBYE said:

....and increasing the amount of clears needed for maximum progression last year was... certainly an interesting choice, even if it was only one clear

Yeah, the increase in clears combined with the backloading of rewards was a really odd choice. 

Regarding @HoundofShadow ‘s point, while I personally enjoy experimenting with a variety of teams, I also only typically play to the 8CP in SCL7, so goofing off doesn’t cost me any placement for all intents and purposes.  For anyone going for any kind of even semi-serious placement, the same attempt at variety would likely double (or worse) clear times while at the same time tanking any hope of placement.  Ever since the current PVE system replaced the 8 hr timers, i’ve never broken into the top 100 in placement in SCL 7+, even when i’ve cleared to check marks.  You need speed and timing to succeed in PVE, so I completely understand people being dismissive of any suggestion to mix things up at the expense of speed.

heybub

HoundofShadow said:

If you go into a PvE with the mindset of clearing everything as fast as possible because you only care about the rewards, naturally it will become boring. 

Yes, but progressing is the main reason we have been playing for 1200 straight days, and you can only progress by earning the rewards.  So the mindset is to try to get all the rewards as possible, or settle on a subset.  I focus on the 2CP from the 5*nodes, and the 2 1cp rewards.  I'm not trying to get max rewards even, or go psycho for placement.

The point is, even then, it is mindless and boring.  Yeah, I could spice it up and use other characters, which I do from time to time, and test out new strategies, but at the end of the match, it's like OK, cool, let's do that exact same thing 5 more times.

I would rather (on occasion), try to beat a node, failing 4 times, and succeeding that 5th try, because I figured out a good strategy to win and maybe got a little lucky.  Based on the feedback on this thread, I would say a lot of people agree. 

Let's put the puzzle back into Puzzle Quest.

HoundofShadow said:

The QoL solutions suggested in this forum usually lead to one result:  more rewards using lesser time.

I don't think the solution is more rewards less time, it's less spend less time mindlessly playing the same nodes over and over and over and over and over again to get those rewards, and let's make the experience rewarding.  Maybe for once, #1 ranking doesn't go the crazy guy who played every node 15x for 1 point each clear, maybe it goes to the crazy guy who kept trying to clear the toughest node 30x, and finally did it on the 31st try.  (no offense meant towards you #1 ranking crazy people)

mega ghost

A while back I recommended the inclusion of bonus points for meeting certain requirements. Either standard blanket points for different types of achievements (i.e. winning in a certain number of turns, having each character down an enemy, dealing X amount of damage in total, etc.) and/or node-specific bonuses (i.e. using only 3* characters, using only X-Men, winning without firing any passives, etc.)

This would divorce gameplay from simply hitting each node a certain number of times as fast as possible during a specific window of time and then coming back during another window of time to do so again. Placement would get shaken up a bit and be more attainable as there would be more variable factors. If you play really well you might even get full progression without playing each node more than once. It would also encourage the use of new and different strategies and diversify our roster selection quite a bit. All good things.

The rockett

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

Bowgentle

The rockett said:

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

D3 won't care until big spenders leave.

People like us, who can keep up their high level of play with minal spending - they don't care about us.
And shouldn't, really. We're not keeping the lights on.

The rockett

Bowgentle said:

The rockett said:

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

D3 won't care until big spenders leave.

People like us, who can keep up their high level of play with minal spending - they don't care about us.
And shouldn't, really. We're not keeping the lights on.

But some are moving to Strike Force.  In fact a lot of people are.  I think after this season a lot of top 25 ally’s on the PVP and PVE side will be losing some long term players to this new game and also the bordum as well. Guess we will see very soon. 

Talestummy

The rockett said:

Bowgentle said:

The rockett said:

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

D3 won't care until big spenders leave.

People like us, who can keep up their high level of play with minal spending - they don't care about us.
And shouldn't, really. We're not keeping the lights on.

But some are moving to Strike Force.  In fact a lot of people are.  I think after this season a lot of top 25 ally’s on the PVP and PVE side will be losing some long term players to this new game and also the bordum as well. Guess we will see very soon. 

Some crazies will be playing both. 

Kishida

mega ghost said:

A while back I recommended the inclusion of bonus points for meeting certain requirements. Either standard blanket points for different types of achievements (i.e. winning in a certain number of turns, having each character down an enemy, dealing X amount of damage in total, etc.) and/or node-specific bonuses (i.e. using only 3* characters, using only X-Men, winning without firing any passives, etc.)

This would divorce gameplay from simply hitting each node a certain number of times as fast as possible during a specific window of time and then coming back during another window of time to do so again. Placement would get shaken up a bit and be more attainable as there would be more variable factors. If you play really well you might even get full progression without playing each node more than once. It would also encourage the use of new and different strategies and diversify our roster selection quite a bit. All good things.

As nice it would be for them to implement some gameplay variations, it would be a colossal misallocation of resources on their part. When you want the mouse to hunt for cheese, there's no reason to paint the walls of the maze, is there?

twistmonkey

Afraid to say I'm one of the crazies playing both MPQ and MSF at the moment. I'm a day 1300 player, and my time with the game has definitely plummeted.

Last few weeks I play for around 1h30 sub end grind + 4x clears, and will spend an hour or so getting to 1.2k in PVP and shield out to the end. Between the unimpressive support feature, the complete lack of Infinity War events or excitement, and the fact that gambit rules all, it feels like my MPQ career is finally coming to an end.

I've got ~400 LL pulls hoarded and I really don't know what I'm hoarding for at this point, even new 5* characters are meh compared to everyone's favourite Frenchman...

Kevmcg

I'm also playing both now and am finding ways to get decent MPQ rewards with drastically decreased playing time.

Strike Force does at least one thing that MPQ does not - it encourages use of your entire roster - multiple times, every day in Blitz mode. MSF has about 60 characters and MPQ 160, but I'm sure the design team could come up with something that gives value to more of your roster than just in DDQ. 

We have posted the need to have something similar on these forums many times - Need to have a gauntlet style mode running all the time - no time limit, use a character once *Eliminator style), or have the damage persist into the next match so that planning is involved to get as far as you can in tough matches.

A new game mode is needed to add excitement and keep players from jumping ship. Tweaking stats with Supports does not. In Strike Force, each mode has its own currency and store. MPQ could do the same so that the new Gauntlet/Eliminator feature brings in the necessary $$$.

veny

1st - Doing every node 4 times should be enough to reach max loot... dunno why do you do them 5 times
2nd - I remember when rewards from nodes were random and you could get 20ISO (?) instead. Also no CPs or so...
3rd - I actually miss some good gridning. Seriously, i would rather see PvE SHIELD-like feature with 5 nodes that could be repeated 100 times (or something similar to gauntlet), or PvE season, than annoying PvP. For me its better to grind 2 hours in PvE, than 30 minutes in PvP.

NeonBlue

Getting bored with a game is an eventuality. The game mechanics are basic, and the systems in place encourage playing on a schedule like a job. I think by day 1000+, any normal person would begin to feel burned out. There is no game with infinite content, and while the game could improve and add things, the enjoyment derived from these systems would be limited as well.

It's hard to make something that works for the guy on day 10, the guy on day 1000, and the developers who need to make money

drexyl

Day 1007ish here.  Missing like 3 5*s.

QoL has actually went DOWN for me personally with the interface change.  

I'd like to see more things to do like:

Seasonal PvE events.

Win Based PvP along side the traditional PvP(You already coded it).  Just run both at the same time.  I don't see why they have to compete with each other.

Things to do with the 140+ champions I have rostered that I never use unless they are part of a required node.

heybub

Bowgentle said:

The rockett said:

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

D3 won't care until big spenders leave.

People like us, who can keep up their high level of play with minal spending - they don't care about us.
And shouldn't, really. We're not keeping the lights on.

On the contrary, they should be more worried about us leaving, because if there's nobody to play against, the whales won't want to play anymore.  It's a lot easier and cheaper to keep players at 1300 days, than to recruit new players that will be committed/crazy to play every day of their lives.

carrion_pigeons

People get bored, people quit, but people don't all do it at the same time.  The devs are aware of this fact and don't worry about it when people quit. The overall quantity of players in this game is not falling. 

Discussions like this always come down to one basic problem: why should devs make a more fun, better-designed game, if they can make a profitable game more easily?  The fact is that being "fun enough" to keep players coming back is not a very high bar, if you can exploit certain other psychological triggers in the human brain, too. And MPQ hits those other triggers hard, often,  unrepentantly, and almost without trying. And so ideas for making the game more fun fall on deaf ears: they don't want more fun, they want "enough" fun, and any more than that is a waste of resources.

Neuromancer

Bowgentle said:

The rockett said:

LifeofAgony said:

I’m over 1300 days ........... I’m slowly finding less and less reason to play.

The amount of vets I talk to on a daily basis that say the same thing is shocking AND D3/Demi should be very concerned with this.  This is why we are coming here complaining about things because we see what’s coming.  A lot less players.  

D3 won't care until big spenders leave.

People like us, who can keep up their high level of play with minal spending - they don't care about us.
And shouldn't, really. We're not keeping the lights on.

Not exactly accurate, sometimes they rely on our antics to spur the whales into spending more money to pwnz0r us. Without a player base, there's less incentive for whales to whale.

GurlBYE

People mainly whale to be top of the pile, if there's no pile, why whale.

While anything would get boring after 4 years, it's not impossible to find new ways to engage players. 

It just hasn't been done, and supports fail this on multiple levels because thus far they require an intense increase in spending to achieve, as opposed to new modes or new things to engage with to earn and use them in.