Marvel Puzzle Quest Sneak Peek: May, 2020 (Updated 5/7/20)

JHawkInc

OJSP said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think not commenting on things that the players in this forum dislike a lot is a better option. Based on past histories (in the last 2+ years) of them answering questions in the forum, the players here have, most of the time, proven that they can't accept their explanations of why certain things happened a certain way. I can pull a lot of past q&a answered by the dev and things rarely ends on good terms. 

I can count a number of those players who are still playing or not banned from the forum yet, with the fingers of my hands.

You could pull more examples of positive interaction from those same Q&A threads. Acting like the few bad eggs (who have largely quit or been banned from the forums) justify the current state of developer communication is disingenuous. 

HoundofShadow

I don't know what that means and how it is relevant to what I posted. I should limit the context to major discussions revolving slowing down character releases, roster slot costs, feeders and rebalancing charactes. Let me correct myself, when it comes to the explanations of their actions/choices regarding the above four contexts, things rarely ends on good terms. Other than that, it's a mixed bag.

Anyway, if changing 3* covers to shards requires two months of cold storage, then I think it's not really worth the freeze.

The only unknown left is whether they changed the nodes rewards. This is something none of us can see now.

DAZ0273

axmoss said:

DAZ0273 said:

So they changed like, 3 progression rewards, that's it? Maybe they have changed up the actual round rewards or something because otherwise is doesn't really seem a huge change. Guess we will wait and see. If this is it though seems a bit bizarre Boss Events have been gone so long.

They didn't change the Alliance Round rewards either. Rounds 2-5 still 3* cover, 4-7 4* covers, and 8 is still one Legendary token (apoc's store).

Oh. Well that makes all of this even stranger. I wasn't really expecting 5* shards but I at least thought we might get some 4* shards. I can see that players are going to be confused and disappointed maybe but I am still glad Bosses are back.

DAZ0273

DAZ0273 said:

axmoss said:

DAZ0273 said:

So they changed like, 3 progression rewards, that's it? Maybe they have changed up the actual round rewards or something because otherwise is doesn't really seem a huge change. Guess we will wait and see. If this is it though seems a bit bizarre Boss Events have been gone so long.

They didn't change the Alliance Round rewards either. Rounds 2-5 still 3* cover, 4-7 4* covers, and 8 is still one Legendary token (apoc's store).

Oh. Well that makes all of this even stranger. I wasn't really expecting 5* shards but I at least thought we might get some 4* shards. I can see that players are going to be confused and disappointed maybe but I am still glad Bosses are back.

And now I read back to the front page and there it is in black and white. There is clearly a discrepancy going on here and the Apocalypse thread.

Bad

Personally Im happy with playing again a boss event. And that is what I just wanted. About those shards, well we will see it if efectively there are (bets admitted here). I wonder if there are some players waiting for apocalypse covers rewarding playing boss event. Of course if expecting that no outcome will satisfy them.
Not sure if they will be satisfied even getting him by chance in the token tought. 

HoundofShadow

Of course I'm not referring to all players as the same. There are those who are not. Unfortunately, the numbers aren't a lot.

That's a good question. That's probably the type of question game devs ask themselves sometimes. Why are we putting extra effort to please or focus on the minority and then end up getting abused verbally by them?

If players could control their negative emotions and prevent themselves from abusing the dev whenever they announce something "unpleasant",  then I think they might be more willing to post more often. There are other game devs sharing that sometimes it's not that they don't want to communicate more with the players, but when they do, their explanations get sweeped off as excuses or their words get twisted. 

DAZ0273

There is a discrepancy between information provided, players were excited for Apocalypse shards, now they are going to be disappointed. If the Devs made a mistake or changed their plans then these things happen, a simple announcement can clear it up. If the Devs then do not  wish to read comments following this they can go back to maintaining silence, they can be shielded by the moderators on this site who can deal with any unruly behaviour.

Anything is better than silence in my opinion.

Bad

 Why should the majority of the forum users suffer because of a minority? 

Now that is the great fallacy. Assuming that because some players say a thing others we will not get what they want. 
Forum users will get what they want if it is something reasonable and if goes well with devs and game interest and most important if devs are willing so.
This is not a shareholders meeting after all.

JHawkInc

OJSP said:

HoundofShadow said:

I don't know what that means and how it is relevant to what I posted.

You're always grouping all players as the same. That's what I meant. Why should the majority of the forum users suffer because of a minority? If all businesses treat their customers like that, there won't be any business left in the world.

And my point is that it's an argument made in bad faith to begin with. Yes, it's a misrepresentation of the number of "bad" forum users to support a point. But it doesn't matter, because neither one nor a thousand "bad" users justifies bad communication with everyone else. This isn't a casual social interaction where you can just take your ball and go home. Business cannot operate like that and expect to maintain a positive relationship with their customers.

Communication isn't negotiable. Arguing that it is is only antagonizing people who are upset with the current state of affairs.

bluewolf

House of X remains one of the bigger missteps in terms of design for PVP, I'm sorry to say.

I do like the more experimental PVPs in general, for the simple reason that the game has been running for 6 1/2 years and therefore has run somewhere around 1,025 ish PVPs and most of them have been using a 3* essential.  So every time a different option is run (even if it's an old standby like, say, Combined Arms), I approach it with interest and look for new teams I might possibly build.

And making a thematic PVP around X-men, and building it with a 3/4/5 node (granted, you can pick 2 or 3 Mags, and 4 or 5 Prof) is an interesting idea, and of course tying it in canonically to the Prof/Magneto conflict is makes absolute sense.

But FORCING the player to use specific characters in specific nodes while targets (and retals) come in on potentially any node means that you as the player (this is worst for those of us in 5 land) have, really, one choice in terms of which node to use to select targets on (Prof) or else decide to put out a team with a 3 or a 4 on it for anyone else with 5Prof to hit with extreme prejudice.

Solutions would be:

1.  Make these characters required but NOT tied to a specific node (see Snowball Fight) - this seems both simplest and obviously is possible to accomplish.
2.  At least make Phoenix a possible choice for the Jean Grey node?  She is obviously not a very good 5* any more, but at least she's a 5.

Maybe in the future there will be a 5* Magento and things would be better (even if you kept the choice locked to certain nodes)to some degree, but when a retal comes in on a node where you can't choose the best option, it's just frustrating.

At the very, very minimum this should have been an off-season event this time around.  I realize you are going for a theme with Apocalypse's release and I guess we are all in the same (annoying) boat but this event was not built in a very player-friendly way, in my opinion.

bluewolf

OJSP said:

bluewolf said:

1.  Make these characters required but NOT tied to a specific node (see Snowball Fight) - this seems both simplest and obviously is possible to accomplish.

2.  At least make Phoenix a possible choice for the Jean Grey node? 

1. I think the characters were tied to the nodes too in Snowball Fight (I could be wrong, but that's what I recall). But, they weren't too much of an issue because they were 3*s and 4*s (Iceman, Cyclops and Star-Lord)
2. We can use Phoenix for the Jean Grey node (left node)

I am pretty certain about the Snowball Fight being open to any character anywhere, but maybe there's a different PVP like this that I'm thinking of.

I stand corrected on Phoenix......oops.  

CT1888

bluewolf said:

OJSP said:

bluewolf said:

1.  Make these characters required but NOT tied to a specific node (see Snowball Fight) - this seems both simplest and obviously is possible to accomplish.

2.  At least make Phoenix a possible choice for the Jean Grey node? 

1. I think the characters were tied to the nodes too in Snowball Fight (I could be wrong, but that's what I recall). But, they weren't too much of an issue because they were 3*s and 4*s (Iceman, Cyclops and Star-Lord)
2. We can use Phoenix for the Jean Grey node (left node)

I am pretty certain about the Snowball Fight being open to any character anywhere, but maybe there's a different PVP like this that I'm thinking of.

I stand corrected on Phoenix......oops.  

I'm sure they were tied to the nodes in Snowball Fight, but that it was 3*Cap, not Iceman, so all 3 were 3*s, so we're pretty irrelevant to me which one I brought. P

HoundofShadow

Many a times, decisions are made due to the actions of minority that end up causing inconveniences to the majority. I'm sure you can find many examples in real life. Imagine that you are having a normal conversation with a group of people in a meeting, and then one of them decided to speak in an aggressive manner at you. Then, more people join in the verbal assault while you are trying to address those group that have genuine concerns. If the aggressors can't leave the place, then the speaker has to stop the meeting. Now, picture this happening in almost every meetings. 

In here, the fact that some are getting many likes, instead of getting their posts flagged for their unnecessary aggressions/insults at the dev tells a lot. 

Anyway, we are 3 hours away from X-Men vs Apocalypse. Whether there are any 5* shards anywhere in the event will be revealed by the 36th hour.

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

Many a times, decisions are made due to the actions of minority that end up causing inconveniences to the majority. I'm sure you can find many examples in real life. Imagine that you are having a normal conversation with a group of people in a meeting, and then one of them decided to speak in an aggressive manner at you. Then, more people join in the verbal assault while you are trying to address those group that have genuine concerns. If the aggressors can't leave the place, then the speaker has to stop the meeting. Now, picture this happening in almost every meetings. 

In here, the fact that some are getting many likes, instead of getting their posts flagged for their unnecessary aggressions/insults at the dev tells a lot. 

Anyway, we are 3 hours away from X-Men vs Apocalypse. Whether there are any 5* shards anywhere in the event will be revealed by the 36th hour.

But this isn't a meeting the players have been invited to!

So using your analogy it is more like a meeting was called to discuss a topic between management and workers  but when the parties arrived they discovered that actually management had already made a decision so didn't bother consulting with the other meeting goers or turning up to the meeting leaving everybody else to scratch their heads in confusion and frustration.

And surely there is a clear difference between questioning something and being abusive? The first is a cornerstone of democracy whereas the latter of course should be discouraged and policed.

bluewolf

If the litmus test for “communicate or not” was “how many negative comments do we get?”, they would never post anything on their Facebook page. Yet they post more things there than they post here. 

Go to their FB and scroll through the comments. Many of them are reflecting the same problems we bring up, although they are not always as well informed.   Many are ruder than here since there are no moderators as far as I can tell. Or their standards are far less rigid. 

The lack of utilization of the forum is due to reasons other than “Oh noes, someone didn’t like what we wrote”.

DAZ0273

The Facebook page is much more vitriolic than this place! So many nasty comments by people who often have minimal caring about the game and are quite happy to review bomb. There was one guy who used to demand the same thing again and again and again.

If things get intense here I feel there is at least a level of passion and desire for the game to continue in the large, large majority of player feedback. Yes there can be some level of tedious repetition (Your character rebalances are on a burner so far back they can't even reach it, people) but in my (way too long?) time on these boards it rarely gets above gentle simmer or spiky sarcastic. I have been on message boards where it got to the point where contributors family members were called nasty things and actual threats were made between users.

This place is like a slightly overtired Care Bear gently nudging you in the ribs.

jtsings

bluewolf said:

House of X remains one of the bigger missteps in terms of design for PVP, I'm sorry to say.

But FORCING the player to use specific characters in specific nodes while targets (and retals) come in on potentially any node means that you as the player (this is worst for those of us in 5 land) have, really, one choice in terms of which node to use to select targets on (Prof) or else decide to put out a team with a 3 or a 4 on it for anyone else with 5Prof to hit with extreme prejudice.

   1000% agree.  Not only that,  but on the Magneto node, I'm being presented with a champed 5* Prof X along with 2 other 5* champs.  I know Magneto's a top tier 3* but a 3/5/5 matchup against three 5* champs is not really equal MMR in my opinion.  An easy fix for this, besides making it to where we have to use at least one Xmen; which might be difficult to code?, would be to make Wolverine variants in place of Magneto.  Sure 5* Wolverine is no scarecrow but at least 5* players can possibly use threes 5*s on every node.

HoundofShadow

I went to their facebook page and sweeped through the past one month contents and comments. While "they" posted more "contents" there, it's probably because facebook has better tools for them to interact with players, and the number of players are much higher there.  Again, most business facebook pages are usually handled by admins, clerks or social media marketers. I don't see any dev posting there, other than some replies about technical issues.

In the latest post, they asked the players to post screenshots of their favourite MPQ costumes. About half of the 40 comments are screenshots, and the rest are made up of random posts or feedbacks. Some of the comments there look like what have been posted here regularly. I think some of them are also posting here.

The dev used to post more frequently in Discord than in here. Why?

I noticed the devs usually back away when things become heated up with in the forum. Has anyone figured out what caused them to stop answering q&a in mid 2018? 

I can't see who's been flagging me, so I suppose they disabled that.

So far, most things look normal in X-Men and Apocalypse.

Michael1957

I can’t join Facebook because they always kick me out of the group for my honest opinions . ( To be honest, every Facebook group I join does that , it’s not MPQ’s fault). So the only info I get on the game is from your input here .

Bad

On Facebook page there are players openly encouraging to not spend money, they complain about each and one char release, sarcastic comments,etc...
Well a high version of what happens here, I always wonder how can this game earn so many haters.
What happens here is still worse because its the official forum and needs more workout to do a profile and talk here.
And being the official forum this is the place where providing valous feedback and show some love to the game, and not expecting specific tradeoff for that other than benefiting as players.
But it is often sabotaged by this kind of one sided tiresome complaining communication extortionism, sadly.
To the point where players defending the game seem to look just plain obscene.