Meet Broken Circle Studios - Developer Blog (6/2/22)

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  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    I'm not sure what's wrong with you but by being pro-business, it means I'm aware making profits are the more important consideration and I'm aware of all these marketing or typical business talks. Do you expect them to tell us that they are thinking about how to squeeze more money out of our wallets? 

    The dev said that they have been working with D3 and Demiurge for months, not me. I'm merely pointing out what they said. I think you are overthinking. 

    Basically, the question was whether the handover was made in a rush or took some time to work out. I merely quoted the entire sentence of what they said. Do you expect me to edit out 50% of what they said like this:

    "The folks at Demiurge, Broken Circle, and D3 Go! have been working tirelessly for months..."




    If you want to quote the marketing materials from D3/BCS, then use quotations.  It's what they're for!  Just repeating their press materials as if true on its face is doing their work for them. 

    I don't expect them to tell us "we are trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of our wallets," but I sure as hell do expect the adult playerbase of this game to recognize that fact. . .
  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 434 Mover and Shaker
    I really liked the shuma gorath prize from the last event, but thought as a whole it was a little boring (worth it though!).  Most alliance events feel very unique and are different than standard fights.  SG just was beefed up a little.

    Also, I think MPQ has some of the worst $$ bundles I've ever seen.  I don't mind spending a little $$ on mobile games, and VIP is a decent deal, but it's very strange to me that you can't just buy CP or LL when you want.  And the bundles that have them have such tiny amounts, like...5 CP.  I really don't spend $$ on MPQ because when there's a 5* I want there's no real way to turn $$ into it lol.  On the other hand, in say, FF Brave Exvius, if there's a new unit I really want and don't have resources/couldn't get, there are $$ ways to get a ton of pulls.

    Lastly, one thing that really bugs me that I forgot about, is how every match is stacked against you.  I just learned about this last year or so, but apparently there's some system where specific colors will drop more depending on the enemy team?  It's hard to judge it because we were never given the exact #s or if it happens in every fight, but I find that extremely annoying.  I'd love to see it tossed out the window.  At the very least it should be disclosed before the fight like it is in puzzle gauntlet.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:

    Still catching up on the last couple of days of commentary, but on the whole I still find the community response overly optimistic given the scale of risk that this change seems to entail. 

    Imo the community response is optimistic because we all know the game needed many things and it was becoming stale.
    People are hoping for good changes and they are excited as it seems these new devs will destine resources for that goal.
    Is there so much risk? If something goes wrong this is just programming, there are ways to correct fails.
    And about the lessons about capitalism, please, I think many of us playing and supporting the game are adults here, and we already know that there is nothing free (the only person opining the opposite would be a comunist).
    So personally I gladly will pay if I get a better service and I'm happy playing it, as these games are just that: services.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    edited June 2022
    illusionist_KA said:
    honest question, will feeders (3 to 4* and 4 to 5*) be looked at.  Specifically, older characters as feeders and the not new characters as feeders. This will bring life back into the older characters that are sitting doing nothing.  Not everyone has resources to push for new characters. Making new character feeders right away was a travesty to the game.
    Feeders are something we're looking at. We're trying to figure out a more organic way of doing that without creating Shardmas 2.0 though.

    fight4thedream said:
    <snip Costumes> Hopefully Judgement Day is also on your radar?

    <snip> Seeing better affiliation bonuses has long been something I have wanted to see and I am hoping that might fall under macro rebalance. <snip>

    Finally, if I may ask one more question, will the reintroduction of 3* characters mean they will be variants of the new 5* release or a totally separate character?  <snip>
    Not James, but I can answer a couple of these.
    - Looking at costumes from inspirations across the board. One of the 'problems' we're actually having here is that a lot of the coolest costumes we come up with would probably work better as a different character version. Not a bad problem to have though!

    - James expanded upon this in the other thread more specifically about that. Affiliation bonuses aren't on the short list, but are things that we've talked about doing more with in the game. Lots of characters have character tags past Hero and Villain, they should mean something!

    - Edit: 3/5 Star stuff James answered above.

    DeNappa said:
    And since we seem to be listing issues we're hoping you will address... My wishlist (for years now lol) has been a better wave node user interface (both pre and during match), and giving alliances a bit of love (maybe some new features, and a less buggy chat refresh). Also maybe dust off some events that are never run anymore :mrgreen:
    UI updates are on the radar, but nothing to talk about quite yet there.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    HoundofShadow said:
    So, this is the big change that was coming to MPQ. Welcome to MPQ.  >:)

    I went through all 2.3 pages and I'm surprised no one asked certain questions. Let me add some unique questions to this page:

    1) Will there be a monthly dev faq, or how often will there be faq/communication between dev and the community?

    2) Are you planning on releasing 6*?

    3) Will you bring back community pves or boss events?

    4) Are you planning to implement supports in pvps?

    5) Any plan to increase the number of timeslices available in the game?

    6) Do you plan to make the AI smarter to play against with?

    7) Did you make any changes to the gameplay's codes?



    1) More on that "Soon(tm)"

    2) Nope. I can't speak for the far flung future, but no plans at the moment.

    3) Maybe. There are a lot of events that were run once or twice and are just languishing in obscurity. Would be cool to see some again or even new takes on those. No promises there, but we did some cool stuff in the past!

    4) Supports are a hot topic internally. Nothing to report there until things get more nailed down. Just that they're on the shorter term docket for re-looks.

    5) None at current.

    6) Nothing there at current, but a smarter AI would be super helpful to make characters like Vision actually workable instead of just mindlessly spending AP on stuff that doesn't matter.

    7) Nothing substantive. Some code changes were of course necessary to change "ownership" of some tools and the like, but gameplay remains the same.
  • AlexR
    AlexR Posts: 453 Mover and Shaker

    IceIX said:

    1) No, still 1 release every two weeks.
    [...]
    2b) We're aware of HP spend on these characters and in active talks about how to make this easier on people. The idea here (well, one of, has knock-ons in a lot of other places too) isn't to put yet more HP pressure on people, but to allow lower end players to experience new characters and interact with the game during tie-in events and the like. Take for example the recent Moon Knight release where a new player would come in from an ad or Marvel tweet and have the game basically say "You know that reason you're here? Yeah, you're not going to really get to use him for 2-3 years after this Versus event ends." That's not the best user experience for someone coming on board during a 5-Star release, and even less so than during a tent pole release.
    [...]
    Thank you. That does help a lot. New 3* releases without adding MORE HP pressure on new players (who already have so very very much HP pressure) makes 3* releases sound a lot better all around.
  • danielrandkai
    danielrandkai Posts: 90 Match Maker
    this is all SUUUUUPER duper encouraging and exciting, and I cannot wait for the changes to start. the gargantos cover was such a welcome change. very glad to have jumped back on about six months ago after taking a break for awhile. welcome aboard, it looks you all have a handle on things already! :) 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    Thanks for answering the questions. Everyone can relax now. We're going to see 4/3/5 or 4/5/3 release schedule every two week instead of 3 releases every four weeks.

    With that, new questions pop up in my mind. 

    1) Since release schedule will become 4/5/3 or 4/3/5, it means 5* will enter LT every six weeks instead and players will have an extra two weeks to champ them. How will this affect resource acquisition like 4* and 5* shards and the number of 4* and 5* runs? Currently, both 4* and 5* have about 5 runs in total before they join the queue to make their yearly appearance. Will 5* have fewer runs instead to "balance out" the extra time sitting in LT?

    2) It's being frequently said that PvEs and PvPs are about speed, or MPQ is all about speed. This is the reason why over 90% of characters are sitting on the sidebench. Is there any plan to change this "perception"  or do internal data actually suggest otherwise? The common suggestion to pves is all about speed is to:

    a) remove placement 
    b) implement a timer for each clear
    c) reduce the number of clear to 1 or 2 so that players have "extra" time to use "slow" characters
    d) open up all the sub nodes consecutively and implement a timer.
    e) others I can't remember, if any.

    If this perception or reality can't be altered, it will affect the impact of your rebalances/reworks to underwhelming characters. 

    I'm not sure what the solution to pvps is about speed though. 
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    HoundofShadow said:
    Thanks for answering the questions. Everyone can relax now. We're going to see 3/4/5 release schedule every two week instead of 3 releases every four weeks.

    With that, new questions pop up in my mind. 

    1) Since release schedule will become 4/5/3 or 4/3/5, it means 5* will enter LT every six weeks instead and players will have an extra two weeks to champ them. How will this affect resource acquisition like 4* and 5* shards and the number of 4* and 5* runs? Currently, both 4* and 5* have about 5 runs in total before they join the queue to make their yearly appearance. Will 5* have fewer runs instead to "balance out" the extra time sitting in LT?

    2) It's being frequently said that PvEs and PvPs are about speed, or MPQ is all about speed. This is the reason why over 90% of characters are sitting on the sidebench. Is there any plan to change this "perception"  or do internal data actually suggest otherwise? The common suggestion to pves is all about speed is to:

    a) remove placement 
    b) implement a timer for each clear
    c) reduce the number of clear to 1 or 2 so that players have "extra" time to use "slow" characters
    d) open up all the sub nodes consecutively and implement a timer.

    I'm not sure what the solution to pvps is about speed though. 
    1) Think I may have been a little vague, or worded things incorrectly. Releases will be as current, every two weeks. But 5s are currently planned to have 3s as co-releases. So 4 / 3-5 / 4 / 3-5 etc. So the LT changeover will be unchanged. We're going to work out how the 3s are introduced into packs.

    2) We've talked about it and continue to do so. The difference in gameplay that players show for say, Boss Events, and standard PVE events is quite stark. Some people enjoy this, others don't. So it's a bit of a tough proposition to just say "make it not about speed". Even if we got rid of the need for speed, the speedy characters are also often the most powerful (hence the speed), so it's not a foregone conclusion that players would spread their roster.

    C for example: Reducing to 1-2 clears from the 3-4 to start points reduction won't give players more time to clear, it'll just mean that a player will start playing 15 minutes pre-sub end instead of 30ish. Less time, sure, but doesn't solve the speed meta. B and D just shift the meta from sub timer end to any time the timer is running. Still speed meta. A has been done. That's what Gauntlet, Solo Daily PVE or Puzzle Ops is.
  • Heartbreaksoup
    Heartbreaksoup Posts: 356 Mover and Shaker
    This isn't helpful, but I have to say that I'm so excited by all of these potential changes - especially to Suppports - that logging in for another round of boring old Hearts of Darkness just seemed a little... dull.  Especially logging in for a 48 hour do-nothing sub.  Can I jump a month or so into the future?

  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,473 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    People have long wanted a “missions” feature like you see in Fallout Shelter where you can send unused roster characters out to passively earn resources for the trade off of being unusable for the duration of that time. Let’s them earn their keep and rewards a wide bench with a bit of risk reward built in. Alternatively a way to actually loan them to alliance mates for boss events so they can still add value and stay engaged even if they don’t have them permanently themselves
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    It looks like I misinterpreted. Got to take back the relax part.  :D

    By removing replacment rewards, they meant removing it from your standard pves like Heart of Darkness, Simulator and Meet Rocket and Groot etc., and possibly shift those placement rewards to progression rewards.

    Talking about Simulator, I think it has been a while since the nodes got updated. Any plan to update the nodes more frequently, or has it already been updated?
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    Thanks to Devpool_BCS and IceIX for the feedback. I appreciate your refined statements about current plans and, especially, some of your game theory statements about the structure of MPQ.

    I remain worried about the downside risks of a big change like this, but it would also be a mistake to ignore the potential benefits of renewed dev investment in game. I look forward to hearing more.
  • Bzhai
    Bzhai Posts: 516 Critical Contributor
    edited June 2022
    IceIX said:
    1) Think I may have been a little vague, or worded things incorrectly. Releases will be as current, every two weeks. But 5s are currently planned to have 3s as co-releases. So 4 / 3-5 / 4 / 3-5 etc. So the LT changeover will be unchanged. We're going to work out how the 3s are introduced into packs.


    That reads to me like 3 characters released every month. Which translates to an increase in roster slots required. 
  • Blackstone
    Blackstone Posts: 603 Critical Contributor
    Speaking honestly, I'm on day 2775 of playing.

    I missed some days here and there due to being deployed and having no service, but this is the only phone game I've stuck with for longer than maybe a month.

    Recently, I've lost the urge to play at all.  I just feel burnt out.

    The only reason I haven't quit the game is my alliance.

    I disliked the super alliance experience and started my own to serve as a place for beginners to get started.

    Essentially, people with new rosters join and the older players give advice to help them grow their rosters without the pressure of placement or anything else. At some point they graduate to giving advice until they move on and other new players come in.

    I have stuck around because I don't want to feel bad for abandoning them.

    I'm not trying to be negative about the current game, but I am excited changes are coming and hopeful that it reignites my desire to play.
  • fight4thedream
    fight4thedream GLOBAL_MODERATORS Posts: 1,979 Chairperson of the Boards
    DevpoolMPQ_BCS said:
    fight4thedream said:
    Hello James,

    Welcome to the MPQ Forum!! It will be great to have some dev interaction here again. I am sure you have piqued a lot of members curiosity. Speaking of curious minds, I noticed you named dropped Hellfire Gala. Nice! Hopefully Judgement Day is also on your radar?

    Also good to see that rebalances are going to be monthly, if I understand correctly. I noticed you used the terms micro/macro rebalances and I was wondering if you could expound a bit more on that topic. Seeing better affiliation bonuses has long been something I have wanted to see and I am hoping that might fall under macro rebalance.  While certain characters do have these bonuses, I just think it would make sense for, say, a team consisting of only Avengers characters to get an additional damage or defensive bonus or some other perk. So I would like to see team bonuses be a thing. Teammates should work better together, no?

    Finally, if I may ask one more question, will the reintroduction of 3* characters mean they will be variants of the new 5* release or a totally separate character?  For example, when 5* Dr. Strange was released they also released a 3* version of him. Ideally, for the sake of variety, I hope they will be separate characters but thematically relevant to each other.  For example, a 5* Spiral co-released with a 3* Longshot.  

    I am going to stop myself here as I am sure others will pick up on some of the other things I would like to ask but I am very excited to see what you and the team have cooking up for the game. Wishing you and the Broken Circle studios all the best! 

    A true believer,
    fight4thedream

    Thanks! It's great to be here! Hellfire Gala is something we're very excited about, and personally I'm bursting at the seams for Judgment Day. As new developers coming into MPQ, you can imagine we have our hands full and have to be selective about what we take on at the moment. We were able to work in some fun surprises for the Gala, but can't be everywhere at once to celebrate all of the cool things happening in Marvel right now. 


    The rebalances are something we're kicking off later this year, and when we do start to roll them out you can expect a rather normal cadence to them. Micro and Macro are pretty vague words. The key takeaway should be that we're looking to do what's right for underperforming characters who are sitting on the shelf. In the cases of some characters, smaller stat adjustments are in order. For other characters (many of which the fans are keenly aware), we're taking a deeper look at abilities that just aren't shining. In other words, we're trying to take a holistic approach. As for your direct concern over affiliations, it's too early for me to speak too much on this, but know that I share your position on this and that affiliations are something we are looking at. This isn't simply a matter of broadening the affiliations; it includes doing meaningful things with those affiliations. Suffice it to say, it's important to us, we're looking at it, and our efforts towards it will be thoughtful and deliberate. 


    As for your last question, please allow me to refrain from response for the moment. We have some upcoming plans to share more information about what's in store for MPQ and the 3* / 5* release cadence will be best shared in that format.


    and @IceIX thank you both for the thoughtful responses. I can definitely appreciate where you are coming from; there is a lot going on in the Marvel universe this year so I can understand you can only do so much. I will lay my cards on the table and just say that I was hoping we might get some more Eternals characters since they will be featured prominently in Judgement Day (and maybe an "Eternals" affiliation as well) but I understand there are a lot of things going on movie and TV-wise and I'm sure you have your own personal favorites you would like to see in game, too. 

    Still, a 5* Kingo & 3* Sprite combo release would be kind of cool ;)

    I'm really looking forward to this new chapter of MPQ and wish you and the Broken Circle team all the best! 
  • RTA3000
    RTA3000 Posts: 41 Just Dropped In
    This sounds fantastic, I’m so looking forward to what you guys are going to do with the game next. It’s come so far since I first picked this thing up over 6 years ago! I also wish you guys at a Broken Circle the best and excitedly anticipate the next wave 😊

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