MPQ - so far in 2020

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bluewolf
bluewolf Posts: 5,310 Chairperson of the Boards
edited July 2020 in MPQ General Discussion
Many posts and speculation have been written about MPQ dying, for years and years.  Until last last year the game seemed very stagnant as just about all they were doing (that we were seeing) was releasing new characters with a couple new PVEs thrown in.

However!  This year has been pretty good, I think, overall, in terms of improving the game in a number of areas.  Not everything is perfect, of course, but I give the devs credit for doing what seems to be a lot of work on the game this year.

Here is a list of what i can remember/dig up:


January....well, nothing much happened here but they did do a "Rebalance Feedback" thread.  Still waiting to see any significant rebalances.

January also saw the beginning of the current practice of always having an offer or bundle in the store (almost always, anyway).  Many times there are overlapping offers.

Feb 6:  PVP has SCL10 added in.  The CP is moved down in rewards (sooner in the table at a lower score, and easier to get).

Feb 9:  PVE gets SCL10.

March:  Shard meter added to roster screen, various UI updates to character screens.

April 2:  Bonus shards announced (still waiting for a UI element, but an appreciated feature).

Sometime in April:  SEGA officially announced selling Demiurge back to the original owner.  SEGA Heroes shuts down not long after.

Late April or so:  PVP rewards were re-structured to move the CP to the end reward again (with a small bump in shards rewarded) - no announcement.

May 7:  Back to back 5 releases (Yelena and Apocalypse)

May 11:  Support UI improvements begin, including making it easier to see who has them equipped, who you can equip them to, why you can't equip them to someone.  Recently they opened up switching supports a fair amount by removing the 2 hour lockout.

May 21:  Welcome to SHIELD begins, a better version of the Shield Training for new 4s.

May 25 or thereabouts:  The tokens for waves were changed from vault tokens to Heroic tokens.  No announcement of this change.

June 1:  Shield Rank cap raised to 300 (from 200).  The only announcement of this change that I am aware of is via D3 email newsletter, which I receive.

June 3:  The first "Introducing" event which gives players a chance to play though a brief origin story for the new release

June 26:  New Support pools arrive(bringing in the ones that players had been unable to pull).

July 1:  New AIM Goons added to the game, begin showing up in DDQ a week or so later.


Please feel free to add in things I missed.

Some stuff we are still waiting for:

1.  Rebalances of broken or sub-par characters
2.  A way to get (and improve) Supports in a more consistent manner
3.  Some comment/rework of SCL10's PVE design and the time involved.

Anyway it seems like some combination of:  A. Quarantining devs at home and B. Devs ceasing work on Sega Heroes, may have contributed to many longstanding issues beginning to be addressed.  (Support UI, Shield Training)  In which case I say, good riddance to that Sega Heroes game.

Here's hoping the rest of 2020 has some more nice surprises in store!

Comments

  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,069 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Good post. I disagree with the “positive” aspect of some of these things, but can’t deny that an obvious effort has been made to address longevity. I guess we will all see how it pans out.

    I like the silver linings outlook though, because it is easy to get sucked into the grind and miss some of the positives.
  • PiMacleod
    PiMacleod Posts: 1,724 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Thanks @bluewolf

    I didnt' know that the shield rank cap increased.  Of course, I'm at 169, currently, so it didn't affect me.  But hey, cool to know that I won't ever have to worry about running out of rank increase rewards.  :)
  • Sm0keyJ0e
    Sm0keyJ0e Posts: 730 Critical Contributor
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    You missed a key date!

    June 2: SmokeyJoe retires, deletes the app, and never looks back...
  • bowla33
    bowla33 Posts: 203 Tile Toppler
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    We still miss you @Sm0keyJ0e
  • MrPlow
    MrPlow Posts: 237 Tile Toppler
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    To add to supports, a couple weeks ago they changed the number of times you can swap a specific support from every 2 hours to 3 times a day.
  • Sm0keyJ0e
    Sm0keyJ0e Posts: 730 Critical Contributor
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    halirin said:
    Sm0keyJ0e said:
    You missed a key date!

    June 2: SmokeyJoe retires, deletes the app, and never looks back...
    July 20: looks back
    Haha, indeed! Still had a bookmark here on a seldom used laptop. So yeah, I did pop back in here but not the game.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I think with the updates that have happened this year I can see a major update to supports overall.  There have been a lot of UI updates and with PVE CL10 supports are actually really useful.  I can see a big update by the end of the year to help players get and level up supports easier.

    balance changes.  I feel this has been placed on hold because of COVID-19 and I am hoping we see some quality balance changes by the end of year.  I am really hoping some under used 5* get buffed to continue to shake up the meta or at least continue to add variety to the meta.
  • ammenell
    ammenell Posts: 817 Critical Contributor
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    huh? changes on hold because of covid? can't see any reason for that, most it employees work from home if they didn't already. 


  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,310 Chairperson of the Boards
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    ammenell said:
    huh? changes on hold because of covid? can't see any reason for that, most it employees work from home if they didn't already. 


    This was a reasonable excuse a few months ago. But yeah, it’s now normal to have as many people telecommuting as possible, especially in the good old USA. 

    One hopes that some rebalances are coming soon now. 
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Right now pvp teams have a lot more variety, and so its more funny to play due to the fast release of 5*. There are some meta teams raising and even kitty BRB are not enough to defending to all of them. 
    I hope there will be new useful 5* who can shake the meta a bit more. 
    For me this is a great year.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,631 Chairperson of the Boards
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    bluewolf said:
    ammenell said:
    huh? changes on hold because of covid? can't see any reason for that, most it employees work from home if they didn't already. 


    This was a reasonable excuse a few months ago. But yeah, it’s now normal to have as many people telecommuting as possible, especially in the good old USA. 

    One hopes that some rebalances are coming soon now. 

    If they could keep the game running from home, a website should be an absolute doddle.