Is D3 trying to burn MPQ down?

ROY84

With the pace of things, it honestly seems like they're trying to cash out before shutting it all down. 

tonypq

Seems like it huh. Especially with all the off the wall special offers we've seen for months. Like they have a random special offer generator and just reach into a hat and whatever they pull out is offered to us. The offers are so different from one to another, some are ok values others completely absurd for what you get and how much they want. 

Not addressing character balance, little new content being added, rush on character releases while increasing special offers containing LL tokens. Still not addressing a more fair and sensible way to cover classic 5s. Rewards are out of date and silly for the time players spend on this game.

Certainly doesn't like they're going out of their way to please the masses, or give one confidence in the game going ahead for however many more years it has left. 

JHawkInc

People have been saying this for years. The only thing that's been consistent in that timeframe is that people have been wrong.

I don't see any changes that seem out of place for the growth and change of the game. We could certainly discuss whether or not those changes are good or not, but that's entirely different from prophesying the end times.

wymtime

so if if you are talking about the 5* release schedule it has become clear every other character will be a 5* going forward.  With Apocalypse IceIX post why mainly due to movie tie ins had them hold a character and Apocalypse was ready to go.  We are now back to every other character being a 5*.  

Just recently the brought back a boss event and a revised shield training.  They have now added a new event Introducing to give you some back story to new characters.

i am not saying I agree with everything the Devs decided to do but it does look like they are trying to expand the 5* tier, and are working on features for the game.

how is this looking to burn the game to the ground?

Vhailorx

I don't think Demi or D3 *want* to burn it all down. I think they would be perfectly for the game to continue showing revenue growth ad infinitum.  But I do think that demi is on their own now, and MPQ revenue is probably drying up (or tapering off, which is more or less as bad as actually dropping in a business world obsessed with endless growth) as older players leave or go casual and newer players are hopelessly intimidated by the new game experience.  And that is prompting them to try to wring more blood from the stone by making such significant changes to the economy (shards, targeted heroes, tightening the HP/CP economies while adding direct buy shard bundles locked to specific characters, cl10 and opening the floodgates on 4* covers, etc). 

So in the end, I think that the effect of these changes probably is to burn out the playerbase faster.

bluewolf

This is the wrong question, IMO.

I don't think they're trying to burn the game to the ground.  I think they are trying to keep it engaging as best they can, trying to bring in characters people want, trying to bring in new/different characters.  The Introducing.... feature is interesting.

Pushing in bundles is a bit fatiguing in a way, but I just look at them and ignore them after that.  The fact that they are constant is the devs' way of leveraging dilution to their benefit, making it seem worth cash to buy specific bundles, and at the same time dilution makes it less "dangerous" to the devs to offer things like a specific 5* cover for however much they charge.  Because any character in Classics will take a very long time to complete, even if you target them.  Selling us one Cable in a bundle might finish him off for some small segment of players whereas most will have a very long time to go.  In other words, they aren't risking making it too easy, via a (relative to buying CP directly) "cheap" bundle, to finish someone and feel you are "done" with the game.  Again, thanks to dilution.

The game has always been (in terms of roster progress) a balancing act on the part of the devs, where the idea is to make you the player feel like you are making enough progress to keep playing (rewarding enough) without making it so easy to progress that you don't spend money, or at least that you feel it's worth spending.

The first question for any player is "Do you feel like your progress is enough?".  When it's not is when you get demoralized, etc.  The game can't truly address dilution (or is unwilling to) - as we can see, they are leaning into it.  Which means that you are constantly battling the pushback dilution causes to your progress.  Add on the fact that they have moved to a faster release schedule of the most resource intensive characters (5s) and it's completely natural to feel like things haven't moved enough, or at least that the price of progress (in time and/or money) has become more than players want to pay.

So maybe the main question to ask is "Is the pressure/cost to keep up more than I want to pay?".  Because in the end that's all you can do, answer that question to yourself.  There's no way to really know how long they can keep it going, and playing because you can't quit and are waiting for the end is probably hurting yourself more than anyone or anything else around the game can hurt you.

krakenoon

As none of us have access to the financials as a whole, we can only speculate, project, or discuss (but only among ourselves, it seems).

 I hope the relative radio silence is a result of C19 hitting them harder than expected and there are plans to course correct, but as the old saying goes, hope in one hand...

 I do have to wonder if the full steam ahead attitude is based on past track records of overcoming player base outrage or a ramrod approach to appropriating funds that will leave the house a pile of embers.

HoundofShadow

You can find this topic created every year: people trying to predict the "death" of MPQ.  We had similar topic last year, the year before and so forth. As anyone knows, a broken clock is right twice a day. 

MPQ is D3's and Demiurge's main source of revenue. Magic and GI Joe don't seem to be able to replace MPQ yet. Until the day the ROI of running MPQ has drastically reduced, in such a way that even without MPQ, D3 can still earn a sizeable income, MPQ isn't going anywhere yet. Alternatively, if Marvel decided to end the contract, then MPQ will shut down.

The main source of increased displeasures go back all the way to shards and the release of SCL 10. The rhetoric or slogan since then has been "rewards have been nerfed across all levels". While the quantity of rewards has indeed been reduced, It's unfortunate that most refused to acknowledge the other side of the truth: the quality of rewards has increased.

The other main problem is burnout from SCL 10. For years, life was good (but boring) cruising through SCL 9 with Thorokoye, Thanos/R4G, Gritty. When SCL 10 was released, I'm sure what many expect is an increment of 10-15 min playtime, instead of 30-60min. However, the ability to get a guaranteed colourless cover of a latest 5* in two events is too much to let go. They are unhappy with the time spent in SCL 10, but they refused to let go of those rewards. Mix this with the "Champ Em All" mentality, and you have players forcing themselves to play SCL 10. The solution to the burnout is obvious: go back to SCL 9 or take a break. So what if you can't champ the latest 5* before they leave latest? You can always do it again when they appear in special stores again, or when their feeders are named.

If you look at the languages they used since the introduction of shards, the focus has been around "targetted progress". They even revealed that based on in-game data, majority of players continue to focus on a few characters, even though there are other characters that need covers. Since these decisions are based on in-game data and feedbacks from players via other channels, I wonder why some continue to accuse the dev of not "listening" to the players. It's contradicting. Something must be missing.

One of the biggest problems has always been impatience: the need to finish a match quickly, get rewards quickly, champ characters quickly, roll out things quickly. implement X solution quickly, compensate quickly, implement feeders quickly, reveal future details quickly.  Sometimes, I wonder where these players are rushing to. 

For years, one other rhetoric that has been popping up here is "new players will never catch up". The question is, what are new players suppose to catch up with?

ThaRoadWarrior

I would be willing to bet people who are long term parking on a specific character past base champ are doing it because a) that character will improve their quality of life (reduce playtime in a given match) or b) it is a lower tier character that feeds such a character. 

Anyone who isn’t behaving that way is likely chasing rewards by walking their favorite around to whoever is next to give out what they want, or trying to finish a character.

I would love to see The Data (tm) and be able to play around with it a bit and qualify some of those statistics with player behavior.

there is no shame in wanting to reduce the pain of your grind times via dominant characters. 

HoundofShadow

That's a good guesswork because those are the reported behaviours that they are seeing most of the time: to farm rewards or to max champ characters. It might also be surprising to hear players targeting mid tier or bottom tier characters. The main reason is simply love for that character. Reddit MPQ has such players making threads once in a while sharing how happy they are champing those characters despite knowing who the top tier characters are.

If the majority of the players aren't concerned about champing all characters evenly, then it's logical that the dev focus on solutions that can satisfy the most number of players. Since majority in here seems to like shifting their BH around to maximize return, it's not a surprise that they are not happy. If majority of the players are shifting their BH around, I believe that Shards might be rolled out differently.

There's an argument about implementing wildcard shards to satisfy all group of players. However, it's going to be very costly. I saw wildcard shards only once in a cash bundle.

I don't think they will share such privy information with us, but it would be interesting to learn how majority of players are playing.

ThaRoadWarrior

I would say it’s to max champ specific characters. Like we know whenever Brigby ran that poll 3* Strange was far and away the most bonused hero. I think that was purely mechanical, and not out of love for the character. I’d bet at the 5* tier you’d find it’s either Okoye, Kitty, or Thor, again all purely mechanical, quality of life enhancing characters. At the 4* tier it’s almost certainly Rocket, with Bishop close behind.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior said:

 At the 4* tier it’s almost certainly Rocket, with Bishop close behind.

At the 4* tier players don't care about Bishop because match damage isn't triggering him and there are lots of teams to deal with 4* teams and low level 5* teams that don't require Bishop. He's a 5* issue only so there isn't a need to champ or push toward max champing him until you are ready for the 5* leap.

My guess at the 4* tier the top targets are Grocket, Juggs, America and now Karnak. Then the next group of characters are Gamora, Medusa, Carol, Carnage, Bishop and Peggy.

KGB

HoundofShadow

Dr Strange and Thanos were the top characters in 3* land to get max champed. In real life, these two characters are also quite popular. I say, it could be a mix, with the ratio being tilt towards their abilities as well. In 4* land, I remember it being your typical top tier characters named above.

Earlier this year, there was 12(?) 4* named Fan Favourite. Bishop and Worthy Cap were in the list. I remember there was a couple of weird choices in there, like 4* Human Torch?

acescracked

ROY84 said:

With the pace of things, it honestly seems like they're trying to cash out before shutting it all down. 

Hilarious! There are a few posts every year going back since the beginning of MPQ that have the same complaint.

I guess eventually someone is gonna be right?   

Mr_F

HoundofShadow said:

For years, one other rhetoric that has been popping up here is "new players will never catch up". The question is, what are new players suppose to catch up with?

Oh, we will. Basing on my login rewards I've been playing this game 2,6 years so far. I may not be deep into 4* realm, but I do have 13 champions and 20 near vicninity of it. I used to thought that I would not catch up, yet starting this year I am recruting new 4* regularly and champ them really soon. It is a mit that new players wuld not catch up. They will, to certain extent.

It is like a perpetum mobile. The more you are into 2* land the more it drives you onto 3* land cause of the rewads and 2* farm. The more you are into 3* the more it drives you into 4*. Why? Most of the time I have group of deep and low level champions. When someone - through max champing and re-rostering - enters the low group someone is leaving it to join the deep one. It is trough for 2-4* tiers. The 2* are fastening 3* progress and 3* are fastening 4*. 69 4* have 3* feeder or sub feeder. So you know.

Cathing up is a slow process. And eventually player will reach an wall created of whale. But even this can be catched up. With a speed of a snail. But everuthing else is whitin the range of any player. But will take years. And maybe some money.

I, myself, thought that i will never catch up with 4*. Yet I did it this year.

optimus2861

HoundofShadow said:

Earlier this year, there was 12(?) 4* named Fan Favourite. Bishop and Worthy Cap were in the list. I remember there was a couple of weird choices in there, like 4* Human Torch?

4* Torch is actually a good character with interesting abilities. If he'd been, say, one of the first 20-25 4* released he might even have been in the running for the top of the tier at the time. Get a few of his strikes out, and his green, and things just start melting. Run, say... Nico, Torch, and Wolfsbane. Specials, cheap powers, buffing, multi-hit attacks.. if that team had bean around in 2016 it might've been really nasty to deal with.

But today, he's just.. there. Like ~90% of the 4* tier, to anyone who has >1 5* champ.

bluewolf

4Torch was very shiny and new when the last Fan Faves were selected. Possibly they base the list partly on who is favorited, and he was probably high on the list at that time for players trying to get him to 10 covers. Or maybe just liking him and wanting him. 

He is pretty good.  If you pair him with spammy characters the board can get crazy. I could see him being valuable to a 3* player. 

Therealsmkspy

Don't think they're trying to burn it down, but they are desperately trying to squeeze what little juice this orange has left in it.

DAZ0273

bluewolf said:

4Torch was very shiny and new when the last Fan Faves were selected. Possibly they base the list partly on who is favorited, and he was probably high on the list at that time for players trying to get him to 10 covers. Or maybe just liking him and wanting him. 

He is pretty good.  If you pair him with spammy characters the board can get crazy. I could see him being valuable to a 3* player. 

It helps that 4Torch is fun to play too and doesn't require certain partner or gimmick to be effective. Generally characters who are self sufficient will tend to trend higher than those who need help.

HoundofShadow

I rarely see 4* Torch anywhere. I can't remember the last time I played against him. Is he popular with 5* players, like in PvEs?

bluewolf

BHoundofShadow said:

I rarely see 4* Torch anywhere. I can't remember the last time I played against him. Is he popular with 5* players, like in PvEs?

Not that I’ve seen. I was just making a case for why, 8 or so months ago, he would be in a Fav Fave store.