The week after Double ISO really reveals the grind of this game

Dormammu

There's always going to be a bottleneck. In the beginning it's HP (for roster slots) and you actually feel like you're swimming in ISO, but when you get over that hump you find out the ISO surplus you've been running is just a drop in the bucket of what you need. That's when you enter the looooong stretch where ISO is the bottleneck and you're starving for every little bit of it. Most of us spent years in this epoch. But you get over the ISO hump too, and after that your bottleneck is CPs/LTs (or 5-star covers) - though one could argue those are always a bottleneck.

But that's the nature of mobile gaming. Without bottlenecks, the developers go broke and we don't have a game to play.

As an aside - while the prices in MPQ are laughably expensive to overcome these bottlenecks, the one thing I always appreciated about this game that so many others screw up is the lack of 'energy'. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will turn me off a mobile game faster than 'energy' dictating to me how much I can play. Yes, health is an energy resource of sorts, but it doesn't take long for a robust roster to overcome this and it isn't a limiting factor to play time (in my experience). This means it's easier to grind for those resources, if you're so inclined, compared to many other mobile games.

jp1

My issue is this...

We never get an increase in value for bundles/rewards based on Shield ranking or roster strength. In this way every time I make a purchase or compete in an event it is worth less to me than it would have been previously. This makes no sense.

VIP for instance should have a changing reward structure as your shield rank increases to keep value. The same for bundles, it only makes sense from a business and customer standpoint. 

At first glance I’m sure lower ranked rosters would complain, but it gives them something else to look forward to, while making the game less painful and more accessible at the higher level of play. Not to mention an actual incentive to keep spending, which at this point is really just to keep the game alive and going from my own personal view. Lack of commitment to the customer base here on the forums is making even that feel unwarranted, so an actual value that matters to my gameplay would be a direct solution to Dev apathy causing ill will amongst players.

Anyway, sort of off topic I know...but, it’s just my two cents.

bluewolf

Dormammu said:

As an aside - while the prices in MPQ are laughably expensive to overcome these bottlenecks, the one thing I always appreciated about this game that so many others screw up is the lack of 'energy'. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will turn me off a mobile game faster than 'energy' dictating to me how much I can play. Yes, health is an energy resource of sorts, but it doesn't take long for a robust roster to overcome this and it isn't a limiting factor to play time (in my experience). This means it's easier to grind for those resources, if you're so inclined, compared to many other mobile games.

It makes me wonder; if the game was newer, would energy be a major mechanic/bottleneck?  The game took the route of mostly locking you out of nodes/events if you don't have a character (need a slot, mostly, at this point) and then sometimes needing levels (or at least wanting to level up characters so they are better when required), which requires drawing more and maybe spending.

So it's an up-front cost but later on you have few impediments.  Technically players can sell off dupes and get way ahead of HP needs once you have everyone rostered.  And you can even choose your level of play, so maybe you just get one cover for, say, Killmonger and play lower in his essential events.

I wonder in other games, if vets can get so far ahead of the game (like longtime vets here can) that the need to spend is basically eliminated.  It's nice for sure but presumably creates some stress on the developers.

Anyway, sometimes we long for MPQ2 to reset the game as it gets bloated with characters, but it's worth wondering if it would have different mechanics now, and maybe we'd find we didn't like it.

DoneWithThis

I can not imagine the circumstances that would get me to play a MPQ2.  Unless you got to import your rosters into a new "system" somehow, there is no way I would want to start over, even assuming this game shuts down. 

Bad

And what could a second part offer? New animations? We use to turn them off to save time. New effects? It could be added on the present one. New story? Same too. New pve and pvp sistem? Same too. Real time battles pvp? That is not desirable to me because players usually tend to cheat or imagine nasty plays/losing time when they are about to lose.
Not likely that rosters would be imported and mostly this one closing, because more money can be earned with a new start. So I think its better stopping second parts speculation(for our interests).
Day 630
8 5* champed.
51 4* unchamped but covered
Farming 2* and 3* 

bluewolf

I mean it's just speculation as far as a sequel......I am sure the devs would prefer to keep MPQ going.  It's just interesting to consider what the next Marvel match-3 will look like.  MPQ is one of the first games that really took off as a "game as a service"; after listening to the podcast interview with the owner, they were worried it wouldn't work out.  Newer games of course embrace that idea and use different approaches.  So the "energy" mechanic could be something they would use in a newer version of this game.  Possibly.

It may not be as easy as you think to add stuff to the game to spruce it up....it is looking kind of long in the tooth in some ways.  The main reasons for a new game would probably be:  1.  Make it look slicker vs 7 years old  2.  Make the UI stuff work better (adding covers to a dupe and not having it try to apply to max champ, for example)  3.  Of course, make it much more new-player friendly.  At some point the point will be reached when enough vets retire or something.  We just had a couple more decide competitive play was too demanding this week.

And, any speculation we have here about a sequel or not, or when it happens, etc is just amusing ourselves.  It's not like the devs are going to do anything different based on what a fraction of players chat about on the forum.

Bad

If the ship is going to sink better a sequel than nothing. Although the risk is high on this crisis ecomical times. And still its not sure Marvel handing license on a game that didnt worked in the end.
If playing competitively energy is there despite being vip as I am. Damage taken is high and some healthpacks usually purchased.
So each player has his play rithm and there are gamers that compensate what others dont.

Dormammu

Bad said:

And still its not sure Marvel handing license on a game that didnt worked in the end.

Not sure if you're saying 'MPQ didn't work', or not. If so, I'd say a mobile match-3 that has lasted almost 7 years now (and still going) is a huge success. Especially in a mobile market where most games are lucky to receive support for a year or two and then disappear or be abandoned - including many Marvel games.

And the Puzzle Quest brand has been around even longer, spawning several games with multiple themes/licenses.

bluewolf

My understanding of energy is that it locks you out entirely from playing for a time. I suppose each game might handle it differently. With MPQ you have the ability to build up your roster and just keep going if you want.  Now, that's not always a good plan depending on your goals and whether you are playing PVE or PVP.  In SCL10 PVE I initially would try many of my champed 5s, but eventually realized how crucial the meta team is to success for me and even clearing nodes.

Anyway, overall MPQ seems much less restrictive as a hard barrier (health vs energy) than many newer games, as was already pointed out.  You can easily imagine a different approach for a new version of MPQ.  Maybe you get full ability characters immediately but energy limits your number of matches per day and you are just leveling them up vs trying to get the right cover colors etc.

SEGA Heroes did something like that, from the same developers (Demiuge).  Once you had a character you could use all their powers, they mostly got stronger ones as you went along.  I didn't play it all that much but the game was pretty similar in general structure to MPQ.

PiMacleod

I have PLENTY of ideas of how a new MPQ would work, using current existing systems, editing them a bit, and adding different layers.

For one... they have ALL of these characters now, and they've learned a TON about what is "meta" and what isn't.  They've learned what is useless, versus what's worthwhile.

They've also learned (over the course of time) that a tier needs to eventually stop growing at some point.  And lets face it, you're gonna have low-tier characters to play as in ANY mobile game.  So, its easy to rethink who's gonna be a part of tier 1, tier 2, etc (i.e. the characters with the most models, like Iron Man, wolverine, black widow... etc).  Kinda like it is now, but you wouldn't waste one-offs on those tiers, like Moonstone and Ares.  Save those for 4* and up, so that they are unique.

I think a big change would be mandatory passives, without sacrificing actives.  Every character would still have 3 active powers, but add in a minimum of ONE passive per character.  Have these passives on a separate non-colored slot... because, honestly, what's the point of assigning a passive to a color...  ANYWAY -- these passives I'm suggesting are something that should be a part of every character, and can be positive AND negative.  Example:  Human Torch:  Generate 1 red AP each turn, and lose 1 blue AP each turn.  Example 2:  Any character that normally flies, like Storm, or Rogue, or arguably Spiderman, could have -- 'When sent 'Airborne', you can still make a match.'  Colossus should have mandatory damage reduction by default, even while stunned.  You could make a regeneration passive for Wolverine, and then use active power levels to increase its potency.  There are so many things you could do with this, that would accurately represent characters, and yet, with negatives as well, you could create interesting 'boundaries' that would help hedge certain OP combos.

I'll add one last idea, before I stop my rambling...  Damage types.  All matches could do "Physical" damage, as normal.  But certain active/passive moves could do any different type of damage, such as "Fire", "Ice", "Lightning" etc.  This damage wouldn't necessarily be any different from normal "Physical" damage, unless your character's passives say otherwise!  Fighting Venom?  He could potentially have a negative passive that makes it so 'Fire" and "Sonic" damage types hurt more... so bring in Human Torch, or maybe Quicksilver's (currently blue passive) ability could do "sonic" damage.  Sure -- this mechanic might not always come into play -- but the developers could use it to potentially make a scary strong person, but then give them a few glaring weakpoints so that people can find a way to beat that glass-cannon.

Damage types, passives for all, negatives, and restructuring who's on what tier based on their current in-game research, would all go forward to making a bigger more-robust title, allowing for potentially more varied team-ups, and plenty of ways to create a winning combo.

There -- I spewed enough of my personal ideas for now.  Seriously, I think of this stuff more-often than I can admit... but then again, I do that most games I play, not just MPQ.