Something in the Pipeline??

Tylander45

Towards the beginning of this year, I shared with some that I play closely with that if the game didn't have something significant change with it by June that I'm likely walking away from it after over 5 years of playing daily.  This is not meant to be a complaining post, rather just sharing what another long time player sees as current flaws and why yet another vet of the game is all too content to just give it up.

1) The Cheating...

Yes, it happens.  Yes, it is likely happening more than people think.  It isn't just that people are finding ways to cheat in the game, it's more that there is NO REAL PUNISHMENT for those that have cheated.  The three biggest cheats that I know of are:

1- Buy fraud.  People are "buying" without spending any money whatsoever for the purchase.  There are hacks that make this possible and it appears to be a real purchase on the backend, unless you do post purchase validation with the payment processor.  If that post buy validation is not being done, it makes it all too easy for people to use these hack programs (more prevalent on android) and rip off not only D3 and demiurge, but players that are making real purchases.

2- Token cheating.  How many people have been re-rolling tokens and for how long?  It's become known recently that this was a problem (that most probably never knew about) and that there were a couple ally families that knew about this for a long time.  How long have they been doing it and how much of an advantage did they gain?  More importantly, the devs/support should be able to see whose pull rates on tokens are astronomically high and do something about it.  Why not punish those that did it?  The community has very strong suspicions/evidence who the big perpetrators were and see there is nothing done to punish them. 

3- Device cheating.  It's becoming quite evident a certain portion of the player base has a way to speed up their game play.  The evidence is all pointing to a particular device or family of devices that allow the player to accelerate the GUI and processing of the game.  Surely these devices can be detected and/or the speed at which these players can complete matches compared to other players with similar rosters can be isolated.  Again, why not do something about it?

2) The broken characters.  There are a small handful of characters and/or combinations that are totally broken in the game allowing players to play beyond what their placement level should be.  The three (maybe four) biggest offenders:

1- Bishop  -(I won't even bother with the details)

2- Kitty (or, gritty, grocket and kitty) -  Kitty alone is not the problem, but in combination with 4s Rocket and Groot, it's a severely broken combination.  I've seen players without a single champed 5 star, but a 12 cover kitty push for and challenge for a top 5 placement in SCL 9 in PVP.  A player without a champed 5 star should not be a strong, viable contender at this stage in the games life, yet they are if they have gritty.  The only highly reliable counter to gritty is black suit spidey, but how many have him champed, and if a players does, they become a big target if they use him.  A possible easy fix is maybe just to place a 2 turn countdown tile at match start that when it is gone from the board then she boosts the special tiles on the board, just not right at match start.

3- Okoye - some will disagree that she is broken, but she really is.  I've seen a high level okoye give 2 star storm the ability to deliver 40k in AOE damage.  There is no way a 2 star character should ever be able to deliver that kind of damage.  She essentially makes any character she is paired with over powered.  A simply fix could be just to max the number of team up AP that counts towards the additional damage. 

4- Thor - Some believe he is broken as well.  I personally would disagree because they only way he is advantageous is because he generates AP quickly when running at half health.  He dies and has no healing compared to okoye and doesn't boost any powers other than collect AP for them.

3)  Game play and staleness - Releasing "new" events that feel pretty much just like prior events with new maps is doing nothing for the staleness of the game.  Introducing new 4s and 5s on a schedule is doing nothing for the staleness of the game.  How about something NEW.  

How about:

-The march/april forum contest was great.  It was different!  Why not put an event in like that, where it isn't just about winning the match, rather you win or get bonus pts for achieving alternate goals.

-Implementing a PVE scoring system or setup that frees us from having to play about an hour during the same time slot every day of an event.  Many of us, especially those that really BUY stuff in game, have a job, family, etc and can't always play that exact same hour all the time, or we sacrifice something that should be more important to make that hour work.  Why not implement a timer for PVE and speed (which is essentially the most important thing already) is what determines the winner, or give bonus pts on nodes if you use lower tier characters (4s instead of 5s) and that way it isn't just pure speed. 

-PVE event that it is expected that a player won't finish.  Make is painfully hard that brute strength won't win it, rather being smart and utilizing the right character combination is more important.

-A tournament that players pay an HP or CP fee to enter and you get to select a subset of your roster at the start.  You then can pick an additional character once you see what your opponent has in their "subset".  Give out GOOD rewards based on how far in the tournament you go.

-An alliance versus alliance event, or an alliance versus alliance tournament.

-how about another run of sakaar arena??  just something to change it up, please!

I haven't been a big game person on my mobile devices, usually I get bored with a game after 2 weeks and delete it.  I'm on day 1940 and do not recall missing a single day.  I'd love for many of the problems above to get addressed and for the game to have fresh life and make it to day 2190 at the least, however I doubt any of the above is even being addressed or even looked at.

@Brigby, please tell me I'm wrong and that there is something significant in the pipeline??

PiMacleod

I support most everything you're saying.  ESPECIALLY THE CHEATING.

I don't have any proof of that myself, but then again, I don't research it either.  However, if it exists in any capacity, it is extremely disheartening.  

I'm on day 2038, buddy.  I understand wanting to see new things.  I'm genuinely excited every time they bring a new boss or event... Even if it's just a new map with the same old stuff, only because I need something new to look at!  

As far as broken characters go, I can't entirely agree, as most of the things you mention depend on more than one character being present.  I say most, because Bishop and Okoye don't have such needs.  Okoye can power up anyone... And that's crazy.  I'd agree to a cap as well.  Or at least a cap to what she can boost Ally powers to... Leaving herself uncapped.  I wouldn't say Kitty is broken either... It's a 4* that gives 7 strike tiles to start.  That's the keystone to many teams.  To not destroy other viable teams, but leave the idea intact, I propose making it a countdown like Medusa's, where it adds attack damage while it's out, and if it's destroyed, it creates two strike tiles.  This way, the idea is there, and it's not exploitable from first turn.

Anyways, I SO hope your words are heard.  I vowed long ago to never spend money on a mobile game.

I broke that vow when I spent well over 5 years in MPQ, ever since the beta, and decided that I'd throw a few dollars here and there... Because not only did I need a few HP, but I had put more time and effort into a mobile game than ever before.  This game deserves more effort.  It has a great capacity for growth, and it's not based on it's comic book icons, rather the ingenuity of the developers to create new ways to keep a strategic match 3 game interesting.  I can only hope we aren't the only ones that see that possibility.

Colognoisseur

None of this is going to be addressed to anyone’s satisfaction. You know why? This is a 5.5 year old game which has squeezed most of the juice out of it.
What do you think is more cost and time effective for the development team? Fix these obvious well-known flaws or start over with a new game? 
We have seemingly been on dev autopilot for a while which means they’re probably spending more time designing a whole new game.
I am just going to enjoy what is left of this ride while it is still operating.

bluewolf

In terms of cheating:

1.  I am not fully aware of buy fraud but wouldn't be surprised if it exists.  As a long time vet, you know that the game has had issues in the past (see below) that were ignored until they reached critical mass.  Obviously this kind of cheating could potentially have criminal implications (telling someone you paid money you didn't = outright stealing) so I hope that there isn't much of it happening.
2.  Re-rolling is not really possible in stores.  There is some manipulation that is possible in certain cases.  Punishment should be pursued but I'm guessing its really hard to actually prove.
3. I don't know if it's device cheating in terms of some Android devices running the game faster, or just the fact that their processors can move the game along more quickly giving some players an advantage.  It's a 5 year old game, as pointed out by  @Colognoisseur , so you might imagine newer devices would be able to handle its simple jpeg display etc more quickly than before.

I was thinking about what we have seen in terms of "new and different" going back a year.  Supports were over a year ago; then we had saved covers, then....costumes?  Pop up CP stores?  A couple new PVE events seem to be in play (FINALLY) after failing to introduce FFW, and that's not bad.  But not shaking up things either.

I am very suspicious that one of the issues surrounding what we do or don't get is indeed the age of the game, and doing anything too different is fraught with risk of breaking things as more and more code gets layered into it.

So I'm not sure you can reasonably expect dramatic changes.

PiMacleod

While I understand how old the game is, the layered data, and how hard the task may be....

Isn't the game also one of the longer lasting mobile games you can find?  It's been around much longer than most ever experience, and it's generates a cash flow still.

That said, isn't a product that still has interest shown by the players after all this time a good investment of a developers time and resources?

Imagine if Magic The Gathering just up and quit after a few years because "they had a good run".  Same for Minecraft.  World of Warcraft.  D&D.  ...you get the picture.  I used different games from different mediums/genres in order to exemplify that I don't think the rule has to be different for a mobile experience.

At this point, I believe it's a matter of the owners and developers to realize what they have and invest the resources wisely.  For example, what if they WERE developing a new app, but really it's just an entirely new version of MPQ...  New GUI, new fixes and QoL fixes to old problems that stemmed from old infrastructure.  They make sure it works with old roster data per player, in order to be able to plug in old player data into the new game to achieve the desired results without cheating anyone out of time/money spent.  Then one day, when they are ready, bring the game servers down for an hour or two, with a default message telling everyone to wait for a new major patch.  The game updates eventually, overwriting the original files entirely, and when the servers go live, boom ... Whole new experience.  Animated characters issue hits per match, much like Super Puzzle Fighter, saved character and team slots, ability to sort characters and other things by different filters, new types of gameplay, etc etc etc...

I understand everything that was said before.  All the nay-saying.  All the reasons why it wouldn't happen.  But just imagine if they were to treat it like the mobile cash cow it could be, and tend to it like other companies tend to their products that stand the test of time...

Bowgentle

PiMacleod said:

While I understand how old the game is, the layered data, and how hard the task may be....

Isn't the game also one of the longer lasting mobile games you can find?  It's been around much longer than most ever experience, and it's generates a cash flow still.

That said, isn't a product that still has interest shown by the players after all this time a good investment of a developers time and resources?

Imagine if Magic The Gathering just up and quit after a few years because "they had a good run".  Same for Minecraft.  World of Warcraft.  D&D.  ...you get the picture.  I used different games from different mediums/genres in order to exemplify that I don't think the rule has to be different for a mobile experience.

At this point, I believe it's a matter of the owners and developers to realize what they have and invest the resources wisely.  For example, what if they WERE developing a new app, but really it's just an entirely new version of MPQ...  New GUI, new fixes and QoL fixes to old problems that stemmed from old infrastructure.  They make sure it works with old roster data per player, in order to be able to plug in old player data into the new game to achieve the desired results without cheating anyone out of time/money spent.  Then one day, when they are ready, bring the game servers down for an hour or two, with a default message telling everyone to wait for a new major patch.  The game updates eventually, overwriting the original files entirely, and when the servers go live, boom ... Whole new experience.  Animated characters issue hits per match, much like Super Puzzle Fighter, saved character and team slots, ability to sort characters and other things by different filters, new types of gameplay, etc etc etc...

I understand everything that was said before.  All the nay-saying.  All the reasons why it wouldn't happen.  But just imagine if they were to treat it like the mobile cash cow it could be, and tend to it like other companies tend to their products that stand the test of time...

The owners are Marvel.
They don't care about the game as long as it generates the money they are getting from the contract.
Devs are trying to generate that revenue plus enough to cover their costs plus revenue for their shareholders.

The moment Marvel isn't getting its money, the license is gone and the game is dead.
Simple as that.

PiMacleod

Bowgentle said:

PiMacleod said:

While I understand how old the game is, the layered data, and how hard the task may be....

Isn't the game also one of the longer lasting mobile games you can find?  It's been around much longer than most ever experience, and it's generates a cash flow still.

That said, isn't a product that still has interest shown by the players after all this time a good investment of a developers time and resources?

Imagine if Magic The Gathering just up and quit after a few years because "they had a good run".  Same for Minecraft.  World of Warcraft.  D&D.  ...you get the picture.  I used different games from different mediums/genres in order to exemplify that I don't think the rule has to be different for a mobile experience.

At this point, I believe it's a matter of the owners and developers to realize what they have and invest the resources wisely.  For example, what if they WERE developing a new app, but really it's just an entirely new version of MPQ...  New GUI, new fixes and QoL fixes to old problems that stemmed from old infrastructure.  They make sure it works with old roster data per player, in order to be able to plug in old player data into the new game to achieve the desired results without cheating anyone out of time/money spent.  Then one day, when they are ready, bring the game servers down for an hour or two, with a default message telling everyone to wait for a new major patch.  The game updates eventually, overwriting the original files entirely, and when the servers go live, boom ... Whole new experience.  Animated characters issue hits per match, much like Super Puzzle Fighter, saved character and team slots, ability to sort characters and other things by different filters, new types of gameplay, etc etc etc...

I understand everything that was said before.  All the nay-saying.  All the reasons why it wouldn't happen.  But just imagine if they were to treat it like the mobile cash cow it could be, and tend to it like other companies tend to their products that stand the test of time...

The owners are Marvel.
They don't care about the game as long as it generates the money they are getting from the contract.
Devs are trying to generate that revenue plus enough to cover their costs plus revenue for their shareholders.

The moment Marvel isn't getting its money, the license is gone and the game is dead.
Simple as that.

Heh... You say that like they don't want a successful product to continue being successful.  Very weird.

You're right though... The moment they aren't getting the money, it tanks.  So... Logic would dictate that you keep things fresh and interesting, in order to keep your already established base, and try to keep enticing new players.  Which, I can't help but assume they have some interest in since I still see occasional ads for this game.

A game doesn't continue to be successful without constant input.  Can't rest on your previous laurels forever.  In the examples I noted, each game and developer continued to thrive by introducing new elements and experiences time and time again.

So as sound as your logic is, it also doesn't address the work needed to keep a game alive.  It's not a cut n dry issue... Rather a work in persistance and progression.  At least in this day and age.

Seems like the shareholders and what not would like increased profits from a newly charged playerbase that comes from re-launching the cash cow that has lasted so long.

bluewolf

A couple quick points....the IPs you mention have a much more vested interest in keeping their games alive because THAT IS THEIR BRAND.  Minecraft is still going strong - my kid loves it - and while they could obviously (and maybe someday will) make a sequel, keeping it simple and allowing just about anyone to enter and join their friends is part of its appeal.  Analog games have an even easier task in terms being able to design their game as needed since they aren't locked into devices and legacy code etc.  So the MtG card game, WoW, D&D...these are the properties that bring people in based on their offered experience.  Not "Hey, it's a match 3 game.  I like those.  Ooo, and Spider-man is in it!  I should try it."

If your question is:  "Should there be a Marvel branded match-3 game?"  The answer is yes.

If the question is "Will it be THIS Marvel branded match-3 game in a year or two or whatever?"  That is much harder to answer.

Even if you rebuilt the game, your best bet would be to make people start over.  A big obstacle in the game as it exists today is that new players are 5 years behind people who have build massive monster rosters that will simply destroy them any time they care to.  If you are going to do the work to rebuild a match-3 game with the Marvel license, the best idea is probably to close down the legacy one which has diminishing returns, let there be none on the market for a while to build up demand again, and have a dramatic launch and build excitement and allow everyone to start at a level playing field again.

PiMacleod

bluewolf said:

A couple quick points....the IPs you mention have a much more vested interest in keeping their games alive because THAT IS THEIR BRAND.  Minecraft is still going strong - my kid loves it - and while they could obviously (and maybe someday will) make a sequel, keeping it simple and allowing just about anyone to enter and join their friends is part of its appeal.  Analog games have an even easier task in terms being able to design their game as needed since they aren't locked into devices and legacy code etc.  So the MtG card game, WoW, D&D...these are the properties that bring people in based on their offered experience.  Not "Hey, it's a match 3 game.  I like those.  Ooo, and Spider-man is in it!  I should try it."

If your question is:  "Should there be a Marvel branded match-3 game?"  The answer is yes.

If the question is "Will it be THIS Marvel branded match-3 game in a year or two or whatever?"  That is much harder to answer.

Even if you rebuilt the game, your best bet would be to make people start over.  A big obstacle in the game as it exists today is that new players are 5 years behind people who have build massive monster rosters that will simply destroy them any time they care to.  If you are going to do the work to rebuild a match-3 game with the Marvel license, the best idea is probably to close down the legacy one which has diminishing returns, let there be none on the market for a while to build up demand again, and have a dramatic launch and build excitement and allow everyone to start at a level playing field again.

Honestly... I wouldn't mind.  If I had knowledge that they were coming back with a whole new game, new style, etc...  I would be in.

Of course I'm in the minority there.  I don't place a ton of personal stock in these things, but I DO like to see things succeed when the idea has promise.

bluewolf

I am not opposed to them restarting with a new game....if that happened, I might come along, might not.  Note that "them" would not necessarily be the D3/Demi team, but might be.  If not, I'd be wary of the design and how FTP-friendly it was.

But obviously there is great risk in restarting while players are engaged and spending, and probably not worth it.  So here we are, wondering how long this thing will go on.  It could be a while since the game idea remains very appealing to casual players.

AXP_isme

I never tried MtG PQ or adventure time PQ. Did they suffer from the same problems as MPQ? Maybe what you call flaws are actually what’s giving the game it’s longevity.

PiMacleod

AXP_isme said:

I never tried MtG PQ or adventure time PQ. Did they suffer from the same problems as MPQ? Maybe what you call flaws are actually what’s giving the game it’s longevity.

Both MtG and Adventure Time PQs are younger than Marvel PQ.  That said, it's hard to say which one is doing it better ... I would think they'd be similar if this one had such longevity.  Can't say for sure.

bluewolf

Adventure Time PQ is shut down at this point. You can go to the forum to see what people think of MtGPQ, but they are pretty unhappy right now with their new VIP program.

Note that the developers for those games are not Demiurge.

Phumade

PiMacleod said:

AXP_isme said:

I never tried MtG PQ or adventure time PQ. Did they suffer from the same problems as MPQ? Maybe what you call flaws are actually what’s giving the game it’s longevity.

Both MtG and Adventure Time PQs are younger than Marvel PQ.  That said, it's hard to say which one is doing it better ... I would think they'd be similar if this one had such longevity.  Can't say for sure.

I thought adventure time puzzle quest was dead with no new content or events.  Just the current catalog on autoplay?  And isn’t  mtg a different developer but D3 is same publisher?

HoundofShadow

Point 1 about cheating is interesting but Google or Apple could have caught that? They take a 30% cut of the sales of MPQ or any other games, so the number might not add up between the actual sales and reported sales. 

Point 2 about those characters, who also happens to be meta characters, make it sounds like only players with champed 5* are worthy of being top 5 in PvP. You can call for nerf to all these characters but new meta is going to appear. It's a cycle that never ends. Are you going to be unhappy with 4* players who happened to luck into new meta in the future?

For point 3, some of you might already knew this, but a lot of suggestions that some vets want in MPQ about PvEs can be found in Sega Heroes. I played that game for a week or two as well and it was fun at first. Due to limited or close to zero competition in the "PvE" and a very linear, straightforward progression, I lost interest in it and I have not logged into that game for weeks. I would probably probably lose interest in MPQ if they took away the competitive aspect of PvEs. The thrill is simply not there.

jackstar0

I'm down to support you on 1 and 3, but character complaints at this point are not valid from my vantage.

Why no character complaints, you might ask, because currently they have basically accomplished a rock-paper-scissors group of characters that are balanced against each other.

Is Bishop annoying? Sure. Is Gritty frustrating? Sometimes. Thorkoye? Meh. Everything is beatable right now even if it requires some planning and luck. Those are parts of the game.

So yeah, no cheaters and more fresh play experiences would be great.

therightwaye

Wait! Are you saying I didn't have to take that second mortgage out on my house?
Well ****.

jamesh

On the cheating front, it does look like they are doing something.  At the end of the last PVP season, I noticed my placement increase maybe 10 or so places a few days after prizes had been handed out.  That probably indicates a few accounts being banned/sandboxed for cheating.  Those players almost definitely displaced legitimate players from some tournament leaderboards, but those accounts are effectively dead now.  So it seems like a risky way to try and progress long term.

As for token re-rolling, I thought that problem was fixed years ago.  If you switch devices and notice the game forgot about some tokens you opened, you get the same results by opening them again because the same seed is being used for the PRNG.

bluewolf

@jamesh
Cheaters are always being caught.  In a pool of 5000 players, there are bound to be some people that get boxed.
The question is what kind of cheating?  PC players can root around in the code and give themselves more resources (it seems to be fairly easy to do once you know how) and those kinds of changes are quickly caught and culprits are boxed.  I assume the game has some red flags that get thrown up when resources (HP or CP, most likely) increase and the game can't account for it via play or purchase.  There are plenty of players who aren't that invested in the game who will use this kind of cheating.

The other kinds of cheating mentioned are much harder to discover and penalize.

If the game thinks a purchase was made but not enough communication exists to verify the purchase (made via your OS of choice) then that could easily fly under the radar for a while.  The game would need to go back to the, say, App store and request to verify the purchase, which would then need to send that verification back.  I can easily imagine that being a bit hard to build into the system and keep purchases fast and easy.

Re-rolling such as it is may similarly be hard to detect.

As mentioned, I don't consider one's device of choice to be "cheating" exactly.

huktonfonix

Cya 4chars

jamesh

If the game is trusting in-app purchases without verifying them, then that's a pretty big oversight on the game dev's part.

Taking Android as an example (as it was mentioned in the original post), an in-app purchase is accompanied with a unique order ID and digital signature so the app developer can be sure the transaction actually happened and hasn't been duplicated.  The documentation even recommends performing the validation server side to avoid local attacks.

If they're skipping the validation, then  that is a pretty big hole.  But it is also the bare minimum game devs should be doing to check transactions.