Puzzle Warriors 3 - Endgame Interview w/ Demiurge

XaOs72

We ask questions about Endgame MPQ events of Demiurge Anthony, Julia, Noah, and Paige!

Website not updating...but here's a link to the show anyway!

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/puzzlewarriors3/episodes/2019-04-26T11_14_00-07_00

The rockett

So the takeaways:

They are not a fan of double Iso in LRs. 

They really like the events that we have for End game. 

No idea on how players can get old costumes, talked about it but no solution. 

Wanted to make an event with the “snapped out” characters but didn’t want to spoil anything. 

Nothing new for any reworks and no plans right now, which includes Banner that they know is a mess.  

Feeders:  They thought they were releasing 5* feeders too fast.... and they will not do them regularly only for “special things”....

Support Circuit:  No idea on what this will end up being but still working on it.  No timeline. 

Gauntlet:  No idea on when this will be back and they haven’t thought or looked into boosting rewards to make players happy. 

No plans for a Deadpool Daily vault rework. 

No plans for a 5* daily crash 

No plans for more support tokens but could show up sometime. 

Dilution:  They are “thinking about it” but that’s where they are.  

Streak breakers: No plans but “thinking about” and know it’s an issue. 

Lighting Rounds:  Got a laugh about updating this, only been 2+ years since an update.  No plans.  

Bowgentle

Feeders:  They thought they were releasing 5* feeders too fast....

Riiiiight... talk about being out of touch with your playerbase.

The rockett said:

Lighting Rounds:  Got a laugh about updating this, only been 2+ years since an update.  No plans.  

2+ years? It's been 4 years.

Shaking my head here.

Reecoh

While the interview was fun, I did not come away from it with a positive outlook on the future of this game. It sounded like they really just don't know what to do about the issues the player base is most concerned about.

Throwing the unnamed designer under the bus wasn't a great look either, regardless of how deserved it might be.

The rockett

Reecoh said:

While the interview was fun, I did not come away from it with a positive outlook on the future of this game. It sounded like they really just don't know what to do about the issues the player base is most concerned about.

Throwing the unnamed designer under the bus wasn't a great look either, regardless of how deserved it might be.

Agreed 100% with what you said. I honestly just don’t know what to hope for going forward.  

Bowgentle

The rockett said:

Reecoh said:

While the interview was fun, I did not come away from it with a positive outlook on the future of this game. It sounded like they really just don't know what to do about the issues the player base is most concerned about.

Throwing the unnamed designer under the bus wasn't a great look either, regardless of how deserved it might be.

Agreed 100% with what you said. I honestly just don’t know what to hope for going forward.  

Maybe accept that it's a 5 year old mobile game with a skeleton design crew and move on?

HoundofShadow

My takeway:

1. Double ISO-8
They want it to be reserved for big celebrations or special events going forward. 

2. Design process for alternate character outfit
-Done in batches.
-What the devs want vs what Marvel allows them to do.
-It requires Marvel's approval and back and forth takes months.

3. Earning past costumes
Talked about it before but they have no conclusion yet.

4.Character reworks
- Not in the near future.
-Agrees that Banner needs a rework.
-Bruce Banner has a special place in the code of MPQ(?). Programming code?
-Talked about Moonstone's old power causing lots of bugs.

5. Feeders
-In the immediate future, feeders will be available in special events instead of being updated frequently.
-In the beginning, they were doing it on a regular basis because they were exploring something. Then, they shifted to something else.
-Think they are releasing it too frequently.
-Still figuring it out.

6. Support Circuit
- Still working on it.
- Might tweak it or replace it with something else.
- They are aware not many players are happy with it.

7. The Gauntlet
- Rewards for finishing it was not satisfactory.
- Still figuring out how to make the rewards better.
-Looking for ways to take off the time pressure for PvE.

8. Bringing rules about locking out characters like Hawkeye vs Hawkeye back.
Able to turn this option back on.

9. Agent Coulson PvE
Sounds sarcastic(?)about the designer's "grand plan" to spice up PvE with Hydra story.

10. Deadpool vault re-do with Support Tokens or Support
No immediate plan but not ruling it out.

11. 5-Star Crash of the Titan
No immediate plan but not ruling it out.

12. 4-stars or 5-stars classic dilution
- Think about it a lot.
- Tough problem to solve that makes everybody happy.
- Bonus Heroes help a little.
- Be patient. 

13. Streakbreaker
-Talked about it and don't think it's the right take because statistics do them (?).
- Need to think about how draw rates look over time.

14. How long the game will be around?
- Still going pretty strong and wants to keep the game alive as long as they could.
- Marvel complimented them last year on how well MPQ is doing. No indication of stopping it anytime soon.

15. Lightning round updates
Not in the near future.

Colognoisseur

A big thank you to Anthony, Julia, Noah, and Paige for taking the time to appear.

This was the kind of communication I've been wanting even the "not right now but we are thinking about it" is good enough for me.

If they would just do this a few times a year it would be great.

Finally thanks to the Puzzle Warriors 3 for providing a space where the Demiurge development team feels comfortable to talk about the game.

We all win because of it.

Colognoisseur

Also can someone change the title of the post to Endgame Interview with the Development Team. I think some might be avoiding because they think you are talking about the movie and not MPQ.

jp1

Wait. They think they have been too generous? 

Okay. That’s hilarious.

Therealsmkspy

So basically they have zero plans for anything, feel they are being too generous with rewards, and everything else they are "thinking about it."

Must be a fun job just sitting around and talking about stuff, lol. 

Punter1

Overall this is a positive thing and no-one wants to discourage them doing this more frequently.  

There's an understanding that they are never going to reveal exact plans into the future for fear of over-promising on something that is changed by delivery.  That's ok.  

However, as already pointed out, there was unfortunately almost zero forward looking positive statements in terms of solutions to the many long-term problems.  Can be summarized as "we know, but we don't have a real plan"  

What's frustrating with that is some things discussed, like modifying DPD rewards, changing up LRs a bit, tweaking Gauntlet rewards etc really can't require that much thought (virtually no wrong answer!) and would be more than welcomed as a change in the right direction by the player base.

Make those updates, get some easy wins, then give us an idea you've got a plan for Dilution and Re-balancing which do require more work.  

wymtime

I am going to say thank you for doing a Q&A with the devs.  Overall I wish we could get this done more often as it feels like it is a once a year thing.  I

for the devs it does feel like they have priorities we just didn’t get to them or understand them.  Last year was all about supports as the big add to the game.  So far this year we have had new story events, and he whole support circuit event.  It has actually been a lot so far this year.  

I think they originally were were planning on having this year be more about supports but with how supports have been received it seems like they are rethinking it.

lastly puzzle warriors if could also post on the forum letting us know you are doing a Q&A it would be appreciated those of us not on discord would also like to ask questions.

Heartbreaksoup

Unfortunately, it reads like everything they were asked was a "no."  I wish we could have heard what the "yes" for the next year or so might be.  No feeders, no reworks, no DDQ update, etc - or "not in the immediate future" - so what ARE they doing to keep us interested?

bluewolf

Early on in the interview they claimed to be working on some new events....It was a bit hard to tell if they are planning new raid-style events or not, but they specifically mentioned the PoP and S600 events as examples of newer things.

That's all I heard that sounded like a thing to look forward to....but of course if they don't significantly improve the reward design on the raid events, I don't think many players want to see them.

Therealsmkspy

Heartbreaksoup said:

Unfortunately, it reads like everything they were asked was a "no."  I wish we could have heard what the "yes" for the next year or so might be.  No feeders, no reworks, no DDQ update, etc - or "not in the immediate future" - so what ARE they doing to keep us interested?

New costume bundles, lots of exciting fours, occasional lazy pve event, and new art updates...

Perhaps more importantly, new ways to frustrate and encourage that pay to win feeling. 

Business as usual.