Next Character Release Announcement (5/7/20 Release)

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  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    jp1 said:

    <snip>

    2. SCL 10 is a significant increase in time commitment with nowhere near the same increase in rewards.

    Oh, please stop being cruel with the “challenge” nodes. I have 19 champed 5s and it isn’t uncommon for me to not be able to clear more than 3 rounds.

    <snip>
    Allow me to quote from the SCL 10 announcement:

    ------

    "Adding Shards to Event rewards is a large pillar in the overall Shards feature, and we are excited for players to get to experience it. We have spent a long time balancing the updates across Story and Versus events alike to make sure that they have the largest impact for the entire player base. With that being said, we are particularly curious as to what everyone has to say about SCL 10. We encourage people who want to try out something new to give it a shot and let us know. We will be listening intently to feedback over the next few events. Competing in SCL 10 is the highest achievement in the game and we want to make sure the players that participate in it find it a rewarding experience. After all, simulations and predictions of player behavior are awesome, but simulations rarely match up perfectly with things when they’re in the wild. So feedback here, especially with gameplay experience, is definitely appreciated."

    -------

    While I obviously appreciate the world went to %$## and things are not "normal" and will not be for a long time, the fact is we have provided lots of considered feedback on SCL10 and the time involved, and difficulty of certain nodes.

    Maybe there is an item the devs' project list which is "Re-evaluate SCL10 after every single event is run" or something but we are rapidly closing in on two runs of all events (plus FFW) under SCL10, and I know adjustments are hard but nothing has changed.

    Points are still weird in various PVEs, the difficulty is the same in all nodes, the time requirement has not gone down at all.  On the other hand players have narrowed in on the most effective teams they can run.

    I guess my concern/hope is that there is still an eye towards adjusting SCL10 in some way to make it more player-friendly.  As things stand we (my alliance family) are seeing what feels like an increase in player retirements and obviously a lot of people are feeling more and more burnt out.
  • St_Bernadus
    St_Bernadus Posts: 637 Critical Contributor
    jp1 said:

    Oh, please stop being cruel with the “challenge” nodes. I have 19 champed 5s and it isn’t uncommon for me to not be able to clear more than 3 rounds.
    Sorry to cut out most of what you said (which I agree with btw), just wanted to ask you about this one. Because I have much more trouble with the 5E than the CN. And I have fewer 5 star champs than you (and all 460 or below).

    Is one of those 19 not Hawkeye then?
  • Ugh
    Ugh Posts: 83 Match Maker
    This is why I stopped playing recently.  I can't even keep up with 4*'s and they are trying to dilute the 5*'s to oblivion.  Way too much time has to be spent to just go nowhere so I can maybe make it to the 5* tier and never fully cover a single one because the dilution is an absolute joke.  Or maybe this game has just become an absolute joke?
  • argle_bargle
    argle_bargle Posts: 88 Match Maker
    If you look at total rewards and assuming full PvE progress, it only takes 2 or 3 Legends pulls per day to keep up with the 4 week 5* release rate.
  • sinnerjfl
    sinnerjfl Posts: 1,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2020
    argle_bargle said:
    If you look at total rewards and assuming full PvE progress, it only takes 2 or 3 Legends pulls per day to keep up with the 4 week 5* release rate.
    if you play CL10 which takes a LOT more time to complete and is exhausting. Just the challenge node and the 5E take about 20-30 minutes to clear 4 times.

    CL9 nets you a nice minus 10 CP and some shards...  a lot less shards, often for a Classic 5* you don't even want.

    Give the same CP in CL9 & 10 (or more in 10 because the effort required is ridiculous).
  • argle_bargle
    argle_bargle Posts: 88 Match Maker
    edited May 2020
    sinnerjfl said:
    if you play CL10 which takes a LOT more time to complete and is exhausting. Just the challenge node and the 5E take about 20-30 minutes to clear 4 times.

    CL9 nets you a nice minus 10 CP and some shards...  a lot less shards, often for a Classic 5* you don't even want.

    Give the same CP in CL9 & 10 (or more in 10 because the effort required is ridiculous).
    4* covers lead to champ rewards. The first 10 champ covers are equivalent to about 50 5* shards each. The next 20 are equivalent to 25 apiece plus they get you a LL token on the way. A single Legends pull has an expected value of almost 100 5* shards figuring in 4* champ rewards.

    I play SCL 8 PvE and SCL10 PvP. I have only a few 4*s champed so far (iso starved.) Between regular events and champ rewards from 2*s, 3*s, and 4*s, I get enough CP for about 2.5 legends pulls a day not counting LL tokens earned. Eventually, I'll be able to place higher in SCL9 or reliably complete progress in SCL10.

    ~250 shards equivalent per day from Legends plus the actual shards from PvE progress and PvP placement (even 50 or 30 here and there) is enough to keep up with 5* release schedule (13 covers*500 shards/28 days=232) Yes, the shards will be all spread out. No, you won't have all the latest ones champed. But you will still be making progress.

    (This all assumes that one of your goals is to eventually get 13 covers for everyone. Some folks just play and don't have those longer scale goals in mind. I suppose step one is deciding what you want to get out of the game.)

    EDIT: To clarify, I'm talking about gaining 13+ 5* covers of any character, not champing every new 5* right away, so spending CP on Classic Legends rather than LL.
  • scottee
    scottee Posts: 1,610 Chairperson of the Boards
    I didn't get to read all of the comments in depth, but I think I saw enough of them to get the sentiment.

    I think it's totally fine for players to express their opinion. I also think it's totally fine for the developers to choose whatever path they want.

    During this covid season, I've been working with some small business owners. In general, they all make relatively small margins. I'd assume it's the same for the MPQ team (and any developer that's not with one of the big companies). If a good percentage of the revenue they count on comes in during new release cycles, then I fully understand keeping the schedule. A 10-20% dip in revenue is make or break for a lot of small companies, let alone 30-40%. I don't know how much they'd lose by completely skipping one of the two-week release cycles, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's significant.

    Again, I understand where the players are coming from. But I'm also sympathetic if the release decisions were made to keep the company afloat. If a slight hit to players' progression is the cost of the company staying open and paying salaries, I'm all for it.

    I don't know if that's necessarily the case here, but I understand it if it is.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    I did some googling and found something interesting.....

    https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1241195252/deconstructor-of-fun/survive-and-thrive-demiurge-studios-and-marvel-puzzle-quest-100m-revenue

    So over 6 years they brought in over $100 milllion.

    I mean....that's about $16 million a year.  Or $641K a month.

    I found some site claiming MPQ brought in $300K in March 2020, who knows if that's accurate.  I wouldn't be surprised if the average monthly revenue has dropped over the 6 years.

    Anyway.....they are not skating on the edge of failure, you assume, with numbers like that to work with.  Who knows.  I assume they could have absorbed a delay, or done some creative events which got close to the revenue that a new 4 brings in.  Maybe half? I don't know but how many people are spending lots of money on 4s?  Anyone, at this point?  Besides the roster slot?  Because really that's what we are talking about here.

    They say they moved up a 5 because that was what was ready.  That 5 was ready whether they released them now or in 2 weeks as expected under our new schedule.  So this 5 moves up into a 4's prior slot, and maybe by the end of the year they made more money because they released more 5's by the end of the year, but even whales have their limits and most players do too.  So, probably, they make basically the same amount of money over a year whichever combination of characters they release because the players are mostly the same and I assume most of us have a comfort level as to a maximum amount of money we are willing to spend on the game.

    It is what it is, I guess, but it seems like the game is doing fine and wasn't in danger of imminent shutdown if a release was delayed.
  • scottee
    scottee Posts: 1,610 Chairperson of the Boards
    If those numbers are true, I stand corrected. I do believe that Google and Apple take a decent chunk, but that shouldn't affect them that bad. I'm assuming the company is less than 50 people. But I would also agree they're making a lot less money now than they used to. MPQ has steadily dropped on the top grossing charts. And if they sunk a bunch of the MPQ money into their other projects, I wouldn't be surprised if it's significantly lower now.

    I mean, something like 90% of income comes from whales, and I'm sure the community knows exactly how many buy clubs there are. We could probably calculate their revenue pretty accurately.
  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    With those numbers, or even half of that, I would expect a more polished game. 
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,605 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:

    They say they moved up a 5 because that was what was ready.  That 5 was ready whether they released them now or in 2 weeks as expected under our new schedule.  So this 5 moves up into a 4's prior slot, and maybe by the end of the year they made more money because they released more 5's by the end of the year, but even whales have their limits and most players do too.  So, probably, they make basically the same amount of money over a year whichever combination of characters they release because the players are mostly the same and I assume most of us have a comfort level as to a maximum amount of money we are willing to spend on the game.
    That isn't what the announcement says.

    They were looking at delaying the MCU Black Widow tie-ins, and chose to release Yelena because she was almost ready, and delay the other character. 

    The new 5 wasn't going to be ready now or in 2 weeks regardless. The new 5 was ready now *explicitly* because they stopped development of the other MCU tie-in in order to save it for later. It wasn't moved up because it was ready, it was made ready because someone else was delayed.

    The question is what happens when that 4-star is added back into the rotation in November. If they release it before/after another 4 originally planned for that time of year, it wouldn't change the number of 5-stars released this year at all. If it takes a 4-star slot between two 5's, and delays other 4's further down the list, then yeah, it WOULD mean a slight uptick in 5's released this year (from the basic 5/4/5/4 pattern, which is already an uptick over previous years).
  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    St_Bernadus said:
    jp1 said:

    Oh, please stop being cruel with the “challenge” nodes. I have 19 champed 5s and it isn’t uncommon for me to not be able to clear more than 3 rounds.
    Sorry to cut out most of what you said (which I agree with btw), just wanted to ask you about this one. Because I have much more trouble with the 5E than the CN. And I have fewer 5 star champs than you (and all 460 or below).

    Is one of those 19 not Hawkeye then?
    Yes, unfortunately Hawkeye is not one of the 19. I do have most of the top candidates though aside from him.
  • Mayo
    Mayo Posts: 156 Tile Toppler
    Instead of milking the whales, devs should provide a relaxed game experience + use mass economy strategies such as giving real vale to vips (+10 limit to total health packs would be a great incentive), real bundles, no timed events where 10 top characters would be blocked to give value to the rest of the characters in the game, taking away things that do not serve purpose such as red iso and tokens, openning a classic 4* store and a classic 5* store instead of the current diluted classic store, updating the purple iso rewards for the higher scls, etc). 

    As stated before, increasing the grinding time and making the game more difficult by giving un mega health to 'challenge' nodes (even more when you specifically need 3-4  top characters that most do not have at the level needed) is reaching its limits. 

    Direct efforts to cheap bundles and better game experience to the new-mid player base and probably the game will earn as much or more than the whales are expending atm. 


  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:

    There is no doubt there will be players brushing these reasons aside as excuses. Then, what's the point of asking the devs to communicate more often when they are going to dismiss whatever they don't like to hear as excuses?


    What truly amazes me is the fact that devs are still communicating. 
    When there are some people blackmailing with quitting the game, not spending money anymore and encourage others to do the same, speaking in the name of all players and what is the worst, lowing the note on playstore, the only thing that is left is going outside equipped with torchs to do some devs hunting.
    Of course they have all right to express as costumers. But expressing in some ways just produce some consecuences: first a monothematic ambient. Second comunication with devs halted(is the most normal action reaction). Third its really difficult to provide good feedback on these circunstances so no improvement devs players interaction. And fourth a new opinion current is stablished where the normal comment is the negative one and the positive or defender not (about that Im usually labeled as the 5% community one).
    About that other post showing game revenue, well there will not be any post showing the game expenses.
    But I think we should believe devs( come on its not so difficult). The game is strong. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2020
    Based on data available, about 3-5% of players spend on mobile game. So, if there are 100,000 players in MPQ, between 3000 - 5000 players spend on the game each month. One unverified data shows that in March, MPQ earned about $300,000. So, each player spent between $60-$100 on average. It looks about right.

    Obviously, this average has been pushed up by whales. It's more likely that your average players spend about $2-$10 a month. For every 1 Buggle Pittance (BP) and 1 VIP spender or $12 spent, Whales spend about 168 - 288 on average. It means that one Whale is equivalent to between 84 BP to 144 BP or between 17 to 29 VIP.

    If you want them to focus on average spenders, they need 150,000 players who buy Bugle Pittance or 30,000 players who buy VIP every month. If they can get 30% of the players to spend, they are probably creating history in f2p.

    Edit: if you average both group of players' spending, it's $6 per person. So, you need 50,000 players to spend to achieve 300,000 sales. 

    In order to get 50,000 players to spend, you need between 1 million to 1.67million active players in the game.

    So, if you want the dev to focus on low spenders, you need to guarantee them that each player in the game, based on 100,000 players, can bring in 10-16 new players. Looking at how some players in the forum are more interested in getting other people to stop playing the game, leave bad reviews so that no new players would want to join the game, don't want to spend more, it's not likely to happen.
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    Mitchslap said:
    - More Character-Skins & making them available all the time
      How do you expect making money of the few skins you released if nobody knows how, where and when to get them?

    I always assumed the reason they decided to sell character costumes rather than menu skins or variant comic book covers was that they are visible to other players in PVP, which would drive further sales as people see the costume in action.

    So it seemed crazy that they would then provide no way for people to act on that desire if they missed the costume's release window.

  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2020
    Hard to add anything else to this, but I will try...

    I agree with the common sentiment, that two 5 releases in a row, without actually giving extra CPs and shards is a VERY bad thing, specially with the existing feeling that it is harder than ever to keep up.

    Sadly, this has been something that has been expressed by players since the beginning of times, I remember back then when 4s started ramping up happened the same thing (when 4thor-Jane was released, like 4 years ago, we also had two 4s in a row, and it looked like it was the end of the game), so I doubt Devs are going to change that. They make most of their money with releases and they will NEVER slow them :( 

    What must change is how we get 5s. Scl10 time commitment is a DISASTER. This MUST change.

    We also need feeders released faster, when they are still in Latest so we can better plan what to do with a particular char.

    And specially we need a much better way of covering old 5s. This is the only Fremmium game I know where is actually harder to cover old chars than newer ones (this has never make any sense). I could accept this new 4/5 release rate If I knew there was some good ways of covering old 5s if I am not able to cover them while in Latest (maybe not immediately, doesnt need to be right away when they leave Latest, maybe 3 months after that, so people are still inclined to spend money to cover them while they are in latest). Sinister and Havok will leave soon and I will NEVER be able to cover them. NEVER. This is the BIGGEST problem this game has, and it is the reason why a lot of players feel they can't keep up.



    PS: I would also like if they included reworked 5s in the release schedule. Why not?

    - new 4
    - new 5
    - reworked 5

  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    Polares said:
    .

    And specially we need a much better way of covering old 5s. 


    Why? 
    I mean, I understand your point. But old 5*s are useless in this game. You need them once a year. It's not worth for the player and especially for the devs to work on this unless they find a way to improve gamming with the old chars. 

    The problems are way before this point :(

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