shardmas then milestonemas.....

entrailbucket

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

There's a massive difference between getting "upset" and the actions some players took during that time.

If the extent of the reaction was players getting upset about this and posting about it on the forum, we're not in the situation we're in today.

What actions are those?  I only saw people complaining on here and fb and discord.  I don't remember anyone taking it too far, like attacking the devs personally, but it's possible I may have missed that if it happened.

That.  And other things.  A small group of players took things too far -- it went way beyond upset, civilized people arguing on a forum.  If it was limited to what you're aware of, we're not in the situation we're in today.


As an aside: do you think it was worth it?  Was the successful fight to get full rewards back then worth the fact that after that fight, we will never get retro rewards again, and we'll never have a true feeder system for 5*? 

Would you do it again if you knew this would be the result?

DAZ0273

Some people down voted the game maybe and moaned a bit? I seem to remember moaning about the lost HP but I think my kids might have stopped me before boarding a plane to hunt the Devs down and extracting "justice".

I don't remember reports of any blood spilt or relatives kidnapped?!?!? Mind you who knows what goes on in Line?!?!? Player's could be harvesting organs for shards for all we know.

The most bizarre thing I remember, not related to this I don't think, was when some dude offered to buy the Devs a catered breakfast if they would have a meeting!

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

There's a massive difference between getting "upset" and the actions some players took during that time.

If the extent of the reaction was players getting upset about this and posting about it on the forum, we're not in the situation we're in today.

What actions are those?  I only saw people complaining on here and fb and discord.  I don't remember anyone taking it too far, like attacking the devs personally, but it's possible I may have missed that if it happened.

That.  And other things.  A small group of players took things too far -- it went way beyond upset, civilized people arguing on a forum.  If it was limited to what you're aware of, we're not in the situation we're in today.


As an aside: do you think it was worth it?  Was the successful fight to get full rewards back then worth the fact that after that fight, we will never get retro rewards again, and we'll never have a true feeder system for 5*? 

Would you do it again if you knew this would be the result?

What did they do? This sounds super intruiging. 

entrailbucket

DAZ0273 said:

entrailbucket said:

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

There's a massive difference between getting "upset" and the actions some players took during that time.

If the extent of the reaction was players getting upset about this and posting about it on the forum, we're not in the situation we're in today.

What actions are those?  I only saw people complaining on here and fb and discord.  I don't remember anyone taking it too far, like attacking the devs personally, but it's possible I may have missed that if it happened.

That.  And other things.  A small group of players took things too far -- it went way beyond upset, civilized people arguing on a forum.  If it was limited to what you're aware of, we're not in the situation we're in today.


As an aside: do you think it was worth it?  Was the successful fight to get full rewards back then worth the fact that after that fight, we will never get retro rewards again, and we'll never have a true feeder system for 5*? 

Would you do it again if you knew this would be the result?

What did they do? This sounds super intruiging. 

It was the catered-breakfast threat!  As it turns out, the dev team finds the concept of breakfast particularly offensive.

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

DAZ0273 said:

entrailbucket said:

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

There's a massive difference between getting "upset" and the actions some players took during that time.

If the extent of the reaction was players getting upset about this and posting about it on the forum, we're not in the situation we're in today.

What actions are those?  I only saw people complaining on here and fb and discord.  I don't remember anyone taking it too far, like attacking the devs personally, but it's possible I may have missed that if it happened.

That.  And other things.  A small group of players took things too far -- it went way beyond upset, civilized people arguing on a forum.  If it was limited to what you're aware of, we're not in the situation we're in today.


As an aside: do you think it was worth it?  Was the successful fight to get full rewards back then worth the fact that after that fight, we will never get retro rewards again, and we'll never have a true feeder system for 5*? 

Would you do it again if you knew this would be the result?

What did they do? This sounds super intruiging. 

It was the catered-breakfast threat!  As it turns out, the dev team finds the concept of breakfast particularly offensive.

They are dinner and a show people, so you can understand that.

I guess this is a Line Omerta thing, eh? Maybe I should stop asking questions and...who is that at my door at this time of night?!?! *Gulp*

entrailbucket

So, was it worth it?  If you were involved in the fight at that time, would you do it again, knowing the results?

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

So, was it worth it?  If you were involved in the fight at that time, would you do it again, knowing the results?

Me? I don't even join in my own Alliance Line chats and I am a commander, let alone plot revolutions against the Devs coz they skimped on some rewards! But I could, so watch out Devs! Was it worth it? I think there was no choice - if you tolerate this, then your children will be next. Would I do it again? I would but this time I want in on that breakfast action.

entrailbucket

I think it's just a classic pyrrhic victory. 

The players fought and got full retroactive rewards at the time, and ensured that we'd never get anything approaching that ever again.

BriMan2222

entrailbucket said:

I think it's just a classic pyrrhic victory. 

The players fought and got full retroactive rewards at the time, and ensured that we'd never get anything approaching that ever again.

If we hadn't spoke out we never would have gotten anything approaching what we got that time or ever again anyway.  If there was no backlash they wouldn't have said, "hey even though they are apparently cool with 30 percent of the rewards instead of 100 lets redo this and make sure they all get 100 percent rewards" like they did when there was an outcry.  They would have just left it alone and every  batch of feeders in the future would have been the same way.

I'd much rather they make new characters like ikarus give 100 percent rewards for older 5 stars like Ihulk, even if I have to work for it, rather than get a lower percentage of rewards for 5 stars all at once in bigger batches.

Especially since it's not even that difficult to get all the rewards on new 4 stars anymore. I had throg to lvl 360 shortly after his release and Dark beast as well.

entrailbucket

How interesting!  So even though that fight happened "for the future of the game" and "to benefit all players," (not my words) the post-tantrum feeder system coincidentally seems to benefit certain players more than others.

How many players here find it easy to accumulate 100+ covers for a new 4* a few weeks after their release? 

Do we have a lot of lvl370 Ikarises and Blobs on the forum?

ThaRoadWarrior

Most of my newer 4*s are in the 280s, scorpion is inexplicably up at 306 but not on purpose. My Blob is sitting covered with 1400 shards and Icarus is undercovered. But I don’t sit in tokens to have a stash of them available.

HoundofShadow

That's the problem with some players. They don't put things into context. Back then in 2017/2018(?), they said that players will get full cover etc. However, shards didn't existed back then. I highly doubt they've already created the structure for shards to be rolled out 2 years in advance.  

Also, I remember one of the dev got witch-hunt, sort of. He said the wrong thing in discord and the players got angry. I think it went along the line of why are the players angry with getting free stuff. I can't remember the exact word for word. After that, he apologised and the dev disappeared from discord for a while.

When context changes, things change. Anyway, that's a done deal, and here we are. For the better for some. I hope the dev do some year end livestream/post to let us know the plan for 2022. Last year they mentioned in 2020 that late 2020 to 2021 will be about UI changes. I think it's more or less done. What can we expect in 2022? 6*, perhaps?

BriMan2222

entrailbucket said:

How interesting!  So even though that fight happened "for the future of the game" and "to benefit all players," (not my words) the post-tantrum feeder system coincidentally seems to benefit certain players more than others.

How many players here find it easy to accumulate 100+ covers for a new 4* a few weeks after their release? 

Do we have a lot of lvl370 Ikarises and Blobs on the forum?

By "shortly after their release" I didn't mean quite that shortly. More like a couple months after release with them as my sole favorite 4 star. 

The newer 4 stars I've never favorited at all are all in the low 300's except blob and Hydra stomper both around 280 and ikarus at 10 covers. 

entrailbucket

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

How interesting!  So even though that fight happened "for the future of the game" and "to benefit all players," (not my words) the post-tantrum feeder system coincidentally seems to benefit certain players more than others.

How many players here find it easy to accumulate 100+ covers for a new 4* a few weeks after their release? 

Do we have a lot of lvl370 Ikarises and Blobs on the forum?

By "shortly after their release" I didn't mean quite that shortly. More like a couple months after release with them as my sole favorite 4 star. 

The newer 4 stars I've never favorited at all are all in the low 300's except blob and Hydra stomper both around 280 and ikarus at 10 covers. 

My Throg is lvl308 and Beast is lvl311.  I would've gotten more shards from almost any older 4*, even at a 30% retro rate, especially if it happened in a batch.

Should players who don't have hoarded resources to immediately max out new feeder 4* throw a huge tantrum and threaten the developers, to get the system adjusted "for the good of the community?".

I suppose one might ask *which* community that tantrum benefited, exactly?

BriMan2222

entrailbucket said:

BriMan2222 said:

entrailbucket said:

How interesting!  So even though that fight happened "for the future of the game" and "to benefit all players," (not my words) the post-tantrum feeder system coincidentally seems to benefit certain players more than others.

How many players here find it easy to accumulate 100+ covers for a new 4* a few weeks after their release? 

Do we have a lot of lvl370 Ikarises and Blobs on the forum?

By "shortly after their release" I didn't mean quite that shortly. More like a couple months after release with them as my sole favorite 4 star. 

The newer 4 stars I've never favorited at all are all in the low 300's except blob and Hydra stomper both around 280 and ikarus at 10 covers. 

My Throg is lvl308 and Beast is lvl311.  I would've gotten more shards from almost any older 4*, even at a 30% retro rate, especially if it happened in a batch.

Should players who don't have hoarded resources to immediately max out new feeder 4* throw a huge tantrum and threaten the developers, to get the system adjusted "for the good of the community?".

I suppose one might ask *which* community that tantrum benefited, exactly?

I don't recall condoning threatening anyone,  just voicing our opinions here and on fb or discord. I also see no problem with players who supported the game financially speaking with their wallet and no longer spending on the game. 

I'm not one of those players though.  I'm completely free to play except for my 2 dollars of Google play credit I use once a month to keep bonuses active which I get for free from my Google survey rewards.

I don't have any huge amount of resources to max out the 4 stars I chose to target.  I just get shards from spending LL tokens and cp like anybody else,  playing pvp to 1200 points and playing scl 10 pve just to progression.   I don't think I'm doing anything special to speed up my rate of getting shards.

Zalasta

A max champion 4-star is only worth six 5-star covers.   It ain't nothing, but it really doesn't move the needle much for people that already have that 5-star championed. It's a significant help to those seeking out those covers to champ a classic 5-star.  I'm firmly in the "retroactive covers should still be a thing" camp.  At one time, I thought we were going to get multiple 5-star feeders..

The devs have always had problems scaling rewards as the game has changed, and way over-valued resources. There was a time when I did VIP, because it was reasonably priced, and super helpful to my 3-4 star transitioning roster. Now that I have almost half of the 5-stars champed, not so much.  Similarly, boss event rewards haven't kept up with my roster. I don't really care about 4-stars except for the champion level awards.  It's not that the devs haven't done some good work. There's been a ton of quality of life updates that I really appreciate, but it does seem that every new reward scheme goes on life support six months after it's implemented.

entrailbucket

We're never going to get retroactive feeders, or any feeders at all (besides the brand new 4* characters like Ikaris etc), because a small group of players staged a revolt two years ago.  They don't complain now because the current system benefits them directly at the expense of others. 

Effectively, a huge pile of potential rewards that many players could use are being held hostage by a small minority who's very loud and claims to represent everyone.

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Most of my newer 4*s are in the 280s, scorpion is inexplicably up at 306 but not on purpose. My Blob is sitting covered with 1400 shards and Icarus is undercovered. But I don’t sit in tokens to have a stash of them available.

Bizarrely Scorpion is also my best covered "new" 4* but only at lvl290. Blob is covered sitting at 200 and Ikaris is a lowly 1/2/1.

DAZ0273

So, I was going to re-visit this a bit more seriously because I think it is worth exploring a bit more.

The accusation that a minority of players have undue influence over a game such as Marvel Puzzle Quest is a pretty big one. To pre-face this – MPQ is hardly alone with entitled fan/player bases in the world of entertainment. There are many who feel entitled to get what they want by throwing tantrums and feel they have a right to the property/IP/film/game due to being a fan, paying or otherwise. There are Star Wars fans who weren’t even born when the original Trilogy was in cinema who loudly trash anything that varies from what they expect because they have somehow managed to absorb Star Wars culturally despite never experiencing it as a cultural event at the time.

So, who are these players (obviously forum rules mean no names!)? Do they really wield this level of power? Do the Devs listen to them above the sound of the majority? I can think of several instances which are worth exploring again on this topic.

1.)    Wins based PVP – The controversy here was the removal of CP from progression and the demand to remove Wins Based PvP. The main threat that I recall besides boycotting the game was that certain high level players would mobilise and spread across all possible brackets and SCL to take all top spots. Lower tier players would be the collateral damage which were basically accepted as tough luck. There was also talk of “seal clubbing” of lower tier players also which in itself seemed a pretty sad thing to incite but I don’t think MMR particularly allowed this. What did the Devs do? They restored CP in reasonably short order however they did also respond to the wider threat by gating PvP so that high Shield Rank players could no longer play down significantly. The Devs also implemented Wins based/points hybrid PvP. Who won? The players probably declared victory but the Devs didn’t completely lose as they managed to still implement their desired change (if not the desired reward structure) and they penalised these players so they could never threaten to disrupt wider PvP again.

2.)    Cupcakes – Players seemed to be at war over this issue with the Devs caught in the middle. The Devs came down against cupcakes as “gaming” the system in an unintended manner. The players responded by shrinking the level of collusion but collusion still exists and has not been addressed any further. We’ll call this one a draw.

3.)    Tapping – This seemed to be a very minor issue affecting a very small amount of top end players but those players managed to get the Devs to remove this style of gameplay through fairly aggressive lobbying. To my mind this is one of the times that a small minority of players clearly exerted a level of influence on the game far in excess of the problem at hand to the wider customer base. Possibly the Devs listened to the (somewhat baloney) argument that tapping was a health related issue rather than a placement related issue. I think most of us could smell that one from a mile away.

4.)    Cheating – apparently cheating happens quite a bit. If you are like me, you have little to zero clue about this. So, who does? It all seems to be at the very high end that players know who is cheating, how they are cheating and what the Devs are or are not doing about it. You might argue in this case that even if it is a small minority affected, they have the right to ask the Devs to address this and doing so is not overly entitled. However, there are degrees of reasonableness – the Devs should not have to report every single instance of cheating that they deal with nor are they beholden to do anything at all, especially if their resources don’t allow it. I have seen the same player names on this forum address this issue again and again but it doesn’t seem that they tend to be able to order things as they wish always.

So that brings us to Shardmas – the suggestion is that a small amount of players exerted undue influence on the Devs to get what they wanted but I am not sure that really lines up with what happened exactly. There was a LOT of bad reaction to the lesser rewards given out and not just by the usual suspects here. We have been told on this thread that things went beyond just complaints – the accusations have not been fleshed out so we don’t know what sort of behaviour was involved. The Devs have changed how they assign feeders – we don’t know unless somebody has proof otherwise that it was always their intention to shift feeders to new releases and so it might have had nothing to do with the backlash. But if it did then as a community should we ask ourselves whether next time a player arrives on the forum *JUST* to trumpet a cause against the Devs/demanding changes whether we should push back against that in case it harms the game for all of us? Is this influence really there? Or is entrailbucket just paranoid? 😉

ThaRoadWarrior

Shardmas was wildly unpopular. As I recall, many of the things being disussed as player retaliation at the time were review bombing, going into the app store and changing your rating from high to 1, cancelling VIP, stopping spend, etc. Essentially coordinated boycot. These things, if done at an appropriate scale, would cause a material impact on the game because mobile titles live and die by discoverability, which is driven in large part by their aggregate ratings in the various stores. At the time, I had exactly one 4* (rogue) who was high enough level to just barely be affected by the weakening of the reward payout, and I was pretty hot about it just the same. I was actually more upset though about losing out on retroactive Sabretooth rewards, since I was struggling to champ him and really needed tools to combat the Kitty/Rocket stranglehold on the single 5* MMR. But that's neither here nor there I suppose.

Even before all that, I was regularly advocating moving to new release 4*s just coming out with 5*s already in the tree rather than doing retro rewards. It really does solve all the problems of all of that. Why there doesn't seem to be any reasonable or predictable timeline to when it happens, who gets them, etc is what makes it pretty frustrating for players at this point. Like just...include them after they've been in classic long enough, what's the problem? Anyway, I do think that care should be taken with how they handle rewards - we're talking about months/years of hard play to earn what you've earned at the 4 and 5* tier, so walking back a long-established precedent of full retro rewards is a huge rug-pull when it comes to player trust. I think they should have been able to predict that wasn't going to go over well at all.