Marvel Puzzle Quest Developer Q&A August 2022 Answers (8/26/22)

LakeStone

Hi Everyone - 

Thank you for so many excellent questions this month! A big thank you to James Finley (Game Director) and the entire team at Broken Circle Studios for answering these questions for the community.

As always, we do our best to answer every possible question but unfortunately we are not always able to do so but if we left anything out, please don't hesitate to ask again in future months.

Summer is almost over so take advantage of the nice weather and find a nice seat poolside, a cozy bench by the lake, or cooling down from a nice walk/jog outside as you enjoy the read below. And for my boilerplate line here, I (Lakestone) apologize for any weird formatting, condensing, typos or such as I put this up in the forums today. 

Thanks again everyone!

Question - Is it the plan to always run a boss event twice a month? and also what lessons were learned from the dark avengers heroic event, the comments were quite vitriolic here on the forums, but I admire the requirement for players to jump out of their comfort zone. How will this be tackled going forward? It’s quite a balancing act. (ThisIsClemFandango)

Answer - Our goal is to run Boss events once a month. Many important insights were made from the Heroic Boss event with Gargantos. We're excited about the format and are excited about applying some of the lessons learned (some of which you've likely already experienced with our second run of  Gorr!). It is a balancing act; this is a massive game with tons to take into consideration. I think our strategy for this (and all things) is to challenge our players, reward our players, and listen to our players. Ultimately this means experimenting with the game (hopefully to the delight of the community), improving rewards so they are commensurate with the new challenges our players are facing, and being active listeners.

Question - I know you had lots of questions about flexibility in PVE times, but may a suggest a middle ground. Can we have more slices please? Ideally 10 or 12 would be good, but if you can get an extra 3 slices would total 8 could be one start each 3 hours, this would help a lot of us who neither 5 current times are good enough to compete. (ferig)

Answer - I can say that we are in early stages of improving the technology and tools that would be needed to make these sorts of changes possible. We recognize the need for improvement here, but we are not yet close to implementing a solution.

Question - I have taken the opportunity to pull from various special CP stores that featured Apocalypse, to build him to my biggest character. But we’ve seen almost none of those stores this year, which is quite disappointing for those wanting to pull for meta classic characters. Can they please come back into semi-regular schedule? (Aberness)

Answer - We have plans to bring these back, with a special store coming up very soon. I can't say that it specifically has Apocalypse, but it certainly will have some great characters in it.

Question - Are you planning on doing SHIELD Training for the new 3-star characters? Do you plan on expanding or adding new Milestone quests? (Hammer3001)

Answer - No Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. trainings are planned for the upcoming 3*s. We do plan on introducing and expanding Milestone quests, but this is not in active development.

Question – 1. When clearing a match, especially low level PVE, I might have to click through 4-9 screens to return to the same node, yet alone find it. Sometimes it feels like I spend more time clicking through screens than playing. Any thoughts on streamlining this end-of-game process? Perhaps making it more efficient?

2. Have you ever considered making landscape orientation available for mobile devices? Sometimes I get tired of holding my phone the same way. Would absolutely be overjoyed to have this option. (leviticuschom)

Answer - A generic answer to your question concerning streamlining processes: UI changes are particularly problematic with the current technology stack. We are nearing the end of our planning stages to overhaul these systems to make UI changes significantly simpler (a win for many of the QoL improvement asks across the board!). When we get there, you can expect lots of improvements to UI efficiency, but until we're there we're being judicious about where we make these sorts of edits.

Making landscape orientation for mobile is something under consideration (I personally want it), as is making portrait orientation available for desktop. These are features that are very much within grasp once we wrap up the work I described above.

Question – 1. Are there any plans, or ideas being thrown around, for adding more ways to spend in-game currency?

2. Also, players can filter through characters on their own roster. Can that same functionality be added for being able to filter through another player's roster to find a specific character? (shardwick)

Answer - Yes, we do have ideas for more ways to spend in-game currency. Implementation for any of these has yet to begin, so we likely won't see them surface until next year.

We're currently investigating filters and, depending on our findings, are planning on introducing a few the community has been asking for. Your particular request seems like a useful one, but might be a bit more involved and might have to wait for more of the underlying UI tech to get up to speed.

Question - I think what I’m most excited about is your plan to revamp a lot of the older characters so they can compete. Do you have a way you're going to approach this? are you going to revamp on a schedule (off weeks, 1 of 3/4/5 per month), or by usage? (Omegased)      

Answer - We're thrilled about the Hulk (Bruce Banner) revamp and have several more already in the works! As for the cadence of these, it's too soon to land on anything specific. The goal is to get these on a set schedule, but the reality is that there are challenges that get in the way of that. Some of these characters just need numerical stats adjustments. Others need to basically be rebuilt (like Banner). With our new characters, there's an expectation on our end that our amazing players will help us find blindspots that need adjustments (Chasm, for instance). New characters are a fun experiment each and every time. With rebalances and reworks, we're trying to be a lot more sensitive in employing the lessons learned about that character. The last thing we want is to update a character and still see them missing the mark. All of that is a long-winded way of saying at the moment we are releasing them as ready, but have set goals for ourselves to make these more predictable in the future.

Question - Will there be another Players Choice poll similar to Black Knight? If so, then can the next Players Choice be a 5 star vote instead? (Venomous)

Answer - Not out of the question and something we'll certainly consider.

Question - What's stopping the dev from doing match damage and health buff for all older 5* simultaneously? (HoundOfShadow)

Answer - Nothing is stopping us from doing stat boost across the board. Alot of it is merely a factor of time and priorities. We've just gotten started with rebalances and are excited about the ones to come, though they won't come all at once.

Question – 1. The 4* cover in the Spicy Taco Vault.  I've asked the forum about this and was told that the cover offered daily is different for each individual.  Can you elaborate what dictates what cover is available each day?

2. Can we open up the scoreboards to the point where we can see every player competing against us in a pve or pvp? (William1983)

Answer - Certain cover rewards can be flagged as random, which essentially makes it different for each player. You'll see this functionality at work in some login rewards and vaults. For login rewards, we can specify which character, essentially making the cover color random. For vaults, we can ask the system to provide a random cover of a particular rarity tier.

As for opening up scoreboards, I've noted your ask and we'll evaluate it!

Question - In regards to sending team-ups to alliance mates: Can the system be revamped to send specific powers instead of sending a character? Can a filter/sort be added? (Godzillafan67)

Answer - These are good ideas and we'll take them into account as we work through overhauling the UI systems.

Question - Firstly, thank you so much for making the game feel fresh again with the new characters, and looking to try new things with powers, I look forward to seeing what you do with the game in future! In some of your introductory blogs it was mentioned that September is somewhat of a milestone, such as seeing new 3*s, my question now is if you can share any information or teasers about some of your upcoming plans for September and beyond? (Thooor)

Answer - Thanks for the thanks! The MPQ player-community is amazing and we're so honored and thankful to be working on this game with you all!

As for the September milestone, we're getting really close! I'm not sure if it's spilling the beans, but here are some things I can share:

- September marks a 3*/5* release. This is two rarity versions of the same Marvel character.

- Releasing on the same day as the 3*/5* is the new DDQ. These have been expanded to provide better rewards to account for the roster slot and upgrade costs of the new 3*s. More specifics to come.

Question - 1. Specifically, will there be a distinction between "Gods" (Ares, Hela, Odin, Knull, etc.) and "Godlike" (Mighty Thor, Gorr, etc.)

2. Also, what is the criteria to determine if a character is "Enhanced? (fight4thedream)

Answer - There is no distinction, as the "God" affiliation does not exist in the game (nor is it planned to at present).

"Enhanced" is someone that has had their physiology changed through something. Captain America with the serum, Jane Foster Thor through mystical powers from Mjolnir, Iron Fist through communion with Kun Lun/Shou-Lao.

Question - Will new 3* characters be featured more often in PVE while they are latest three, as 4* and 5* latest are? (Ptahhotep)      

Answer - The new 3* will have a featured PVP that is planned to take the place of the current 1st PVP event for new releases (the 5* featured PVP will remain as is, as the 2nd PVP event for the new release). There are no plans for them to be featured more often in PVE.

Question - Some other games like Fallout Shelter have a quest system where you can send characters to go out on some kind of idle mission you don’t control to earn resources in the background. Have you considered a system like this to allow people to put their large rosters to work? Perhaps adjust the rewards based on the character level that you deploy? I would assume sending a character on a mission like this takes them out of active playability for the duration of the mission cooldown so they wouldn't be available (unless you had a duplicate) to use on a node unless you end the mission early and forfiet any reward progress.  (ThaRoadWarrior)

Answer - There has been some light discussion surrounding this sort of feature (which I personally think is super cool!). Not an official announcement or anything, but if I get my way we'll see something like this in the future.

Question - Is there any plan to run smaller events alongside boss events? Currently when boss events run it really feels like there is not much to do. Especially during the last day of the event when I’m sure many alliances have already cleared it. I know some-many players welcome the day off, but I would like something else to do. (dianetics)

Answer - The community is certainly divided on this point, right? Some love the break, while others crave more to do. We're very aware of this division are seeking solutions that serve all (I personally side with you in wishing there was more to do on that last day).

Question - Are there any plans to switch up the opponents in Shield Training events? Will they always be the same characters (Thing/Mordo/Starlord, Deadpool/venom/Carter, doom bot/mockingbird/iron heart)? (TigerWong)

Answer - Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. events are simply something Broken Circle isn't doing well at the moment. We can and should execute it better with more variations and situations that exemplify the fun of the character on display. In addition, there is the broader question of 5*s and their retired "Introducing" events. At minimum, yes, more focus on making these events will come as we improve our own internal processes. Beyond that, there are interesting possibilities in expanding this format that we've been talking over.

Question - Four years ago, I asked the old regime about trying to attract more Steam players by adding achievements and trading cards.  Could these ideas be reconsidered?

Answer - We're interested in getting Steam achievements implemented, as many of our internal players primarily play on Steam. We'll see about getting this added to the roadmap.

Question - When you look at updates to the game how frequently would you like to have major updates to the game? Are we up looking at annually, semi annually, quarterly? Examples in the past to major updates: supports, champ rewards, 5* characters, shield rank.  (wyntime)

Answer - Although this year our focus has been taking ownership over MPQ, our cadence for the types of features you describe have a loose goal of annual release, given that they are of significant size and require large team allocations to achieve.

Question - 1. We've got waaaay more 4* than 3*, are you going to create DDQ for 4*?

2. How about changing iso to hp and hp into iso especially when dual characters (3* and 5*) will show up? - I post it again because i didn't see answer last time despite answering my other question.(Woiciu)

Answer - With regards to 4*s and DDQs, stay tuned

As for the currency conversion question, this isn't something we're likely to do because of the economic implications involved.

Question - 1. Shield Simulator gets very boring as you close in on 50 wins or 2000 points. The meta has diversified enough that you don’t see just one team but you still typically see the same handful of teams for season after season. Has there been any consideration to extending the weekly boosts to Shield Sim to both freshen the event and add complexity for players trying to compete for the top placements?

2. VIP is underwhelming, unimaginative and stale. I wouldn’t ask you to speak for the old team in regards to why it’s been neglected, but I will ask how high is it on the priority list for revamp? From an outside perspective, it feels like low hanging fruit as far as potential revenue drivers for the game. (658_2)

Answer - Regarding the weekly boosts and Shield Sim, that's an interesting idea and one I'll take back to the crew.

As for VIP, improving this is something that has indeed come up and there are some early ideas buzzing around. Super early stage right now, so I wouldn't expect to see or hear anything further on this in 2022.

Question - There are several clunky, dated features in game that have been mentioned already; my thought are on the overhaul of the alliance tab. Are there any plans on updating this and if so, can you give any enticing details? (Glockoma)

Answer - There are a few sections of the game that are clearly more than a bit behind the others, and the alliance tab is one of them. Alliances, Alliance features, and social aspects in general are in mid-late stages of design. That said, we have big plans in store that likely won't fully surface until 2024. That's a long way off, but we'll keep you posted.

Question – 1. I'm easy, how do you plan to deal with roster pressure on both ISO and HP? These have both been victim of more and more heroes being released and event rewards don't do any better for your daily player than when they were formulated, with a handful of 4s or 5s entirely.

As an ALMOST 5* player I can admit that we can almost keep track with new releases (new 3s will set us back for sure though)... it's a horrible place to be a new player without reward structures changing to fit them though, they'll never catch up as it stands.

2. I guess my second question then is: do you want to make the 3* tier a decent place to be, and not just a stepping-stone to the real game in 4+? (Timemachinego)

Answer - It's an unfortunate reality that when we do things like release additional characters (something that would normally be celebrated), the response is a mix of excitement and disappointment. Excitement because NEW. Disappointment, because of some of the reasons you state. We've made some substantial improvements to the DDQ that are intended to offset our new 3* releases and take care of some of that roster pressure.

As for your other question, we want the entire game to be a great place to be. That isn't exactly the case, and so in addition to growing the game with our new 4's and 5's, we're looking at everything that comes before it.

Question – In regards to dilution. Is there anything in the works in improving the  odds to pull better characters. Is there a possibility to going back to the newest 10 to 20 4* in the Latest Legends store?  or a possibility of splitting the 4* in half between latest and classic? (illusionist_KA)

Answer - There is nothing in the works for this at the moment.

Question – 1. As a quality of life improvement, can you please allow players to use 5*s for the 1* and 2* DP dailies? It's tedious how long it takes to clear those three nodes, year after year.

2. Also, are you planning to switch the composition of the Shield Training enemy teams? It seems odd to have the new character with a required 4/5* who may/may not have any synergy, against the same fairly synergized enemy teams. (ImmortalZodd)

Answer - We feel that part of what's interesting about the DDQ is that it makes your entire roster valuable in some way. That's something we want to keep doing, and I think you'll see some of that reflected in the upcoming DDQ revamp! As for the The Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. event, we have plans to do a better job with those in general. As we continue to work towards becoming proficient in all areas of development for MPQ, it will free up some additional time so we can focus on more things like this. We haven't done a great job of these events and know it's an area we can surely improve at.

Question - Are there any plans to bring in more alternate costumes or plans to bring in Norman Osborn Iron Patriot? (Capt)

Answer - Alternate costumes: YES.

Iron Patriot: I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

Question - 1. When are we going to see the rest of the Phoenix Five as 5* (Emma Frost, Magik, Namor)?  I know Namor is a long shot with Wakanda Forever coming soon.

2.  Two of the current four limited characters have a mission that rewards a random cover.  Is it possible to add one for Devil Dinosaur and Spider Ham?  The last mission in the Hunt would be good for DD and maybe the last mission in the Savage Land of Cosmic Chaos for Spider Ham. (Grizwald)

Answer - I can't share definitive dates at this time, but it's likely we'll see the rest of Phoenix Five make their way into the game before the end of 2024.

As for broadening when we see certain limited characters, this is a cool idea and noted. We love trying things out and this certainly sounds like it's worth a shot!

Question - 1 - Would you ever consider creating a "Players Council" made up of players from a variety of playstyle/levels who could be used as advisors for upcoming gameplay decisions? I realize things such as spoiler-level upcoming release intel would likely violate your agreements with Marvel, but decisions such as character reworks or reward structures could easily include more player feedback BEFORE it is announced here or in-game.

2 - [On a lighter note] We players love our nicknames for the MPQ characters and/or teams. Are there any over the years that you find particularly funny or intriguing as we come up with them? Do the Devs occasionally give "inside" nicknames to characters that you would be willing to share a couple with us? (SkittleDaddy)

Answer - With regards to a players council, this is something we'll need to put some thought into. In general we love the idea, but we also want to make sure that as developers that we're ready to do our part to make it successful. Let's circle back on this.

As for nicknames: 5* Deadpool is known internally as "Carpool" and is pervasive enough to have become his internal name in the game as well!

Question - Are there any plans to deal with 4* and 5* dilutions given how big those tiers are now? Perhaps a third regular CP store titled "Featured Legends" could be added, and each season, it would feature a different set of three 5*s along with a set of 4*s that have boosted odds? (Justsing)

Answer - We do talk about dilution quite a bit. It isn't amongst the priorities we are juggling, but I also do feel confident that several solutions for this are various stages of design completion and, when necessary, we can roll them out. We don't think it needs immediate action, but we do know that action at some point will certainly be needed.

Question - Hello! First time commenter here! I just wanted to start off by applauding the open line of communication you've brought to this game, it encouraged a 4 yr player like myself to join the forum just for this!

1) would scl10 be able to offer 5* shards in progression? I think it would encourage players joining scl10 if we were able to get, say 15-25 shards of a 5*. I know it's not as difficult in pvp to reach full progression, but it would be cool to have a small way of increasing those hard to obtain 5* shards.

2) I had an idea for the CL tokens that have been slowly been given out. Would it be possible to have a rotation of 3 classic 5* vault kinda like the LL? Maybe it rotates every month, and it might entice some players like myself to spend on classic pulls to either champ an old 5*  or target a meta that has fallen in the depths of all the classic 5*s. (Miglo14)

Answer - Welcome and thanks for the comment! The MPQ player community is the best and we appreciate you all!

Pertaining to your question concerning 5* shards in progression, it's not off the table. When we introduced 5* covers in Boss events, it certainly turned heads. We're rethinking rewards everywhere and I think we'd be open to do a trial run of this sort of reward modification soon!

This idea of what are essentially "featured" classic characters is interesting and I could certainly see it adding a new dimension of interest and strategy surrounding that store. Color me intrigued and count on us mulling this over!

Question - 1. Can we get a damage report after a match?  Or at the very least when we overkill the last opponent, show how much damage was actually done that turn?

2. Can we get node progression shown on the main screen of events?  Finishing a match always puts you back on the big map in a different location and it gets confuzzling. (Seph1roth5)

Answer - Given the number of players who take issue with the number of screens traversed in core play, adding a match report screen gives me a bit of pause (though perhaps it could be tucked elsewhere in the UI). As for the overkill, that's something I'd personally love to have. I'll ask some of the devs to look into that, but I can't imagine it being too much effort (famous last words).

Question - Any chance that maybe Lightning Rounds could be improved? Include all 3s, do a 4* version, add CLs, anything really. They haven't been updated in 7 years. (Bowgentle)

Answer - This is something I really want to do once we get event creation in a better spot. As it stands outside of bosses we haven't created (nor have started) any PVE events. It's a major goal to change this in 2023, and once we get new events in a better spot (with the ultimate goal of making their release a regular thing) Lightning Rounds are next in line for some enhancements. At this moment literally zero design work has gone into their revamp, but we have been compiling community notes on them as a starting point.

Question - What happens at 43% loading?  It always pauses there. (Captainheath)

Answer - I've made note to figure this out, since now that it's been said I can't stop thinking about it.

Question - Have you given any thought to creating Roster Slot Tokens? This would be a token used to buy a roster slot obviously, but having it in token form would allow you to release one for example with each 3* release to help alleviate the roster slot concern of many players (it would obviously not help with the other resources though). The other benefit of a Roster Slot Token is that it’s another item that you could include in the various bundles you offer players, so it might help with monetization efforts. (ArchusMonk)

Answer - I personally bring this up quite a bit. There are many potential benefits. I probably ask "why don't we have a roster slot token?" a couple of times a month. I'll keep bugging the team until one of the engineers gets tired of me and does it.

Question - Can you please not do data pushes in the last 30 minutes of PvE and PvP slices? It really messes people up. (helix72)

Answer - We do our best to avoid this. Recently we've hired some folks who live on the east coast to resume the previous developer's patch schedule, though even that negatively impacts some players. It's something we try to avoid, have made improvements towards, and hope to further improve with tools to make patch scheduling simpler to coordinate and execute. Until we get it fully automated, apologies for any inconveniences.

Question - In a similar request, can you not have news items and bundles released at 9am PST (or any start of a new slice). Just push it up or back an hour or something. :-) (Xception81)

Answer - The solution is probably introducing better controls as to when these types of messages show up so as not to be as intrusive. I hear you though!

Question - I confess I'm less than thrilled with the characters you have introduced and the passive powers that act against my team.  I don't need Oscorp Spidey locking tiles that I want Kitty to remove, and I certainly don't want Mighty Thor destroying my team's special tiles.  These are massive aggravations that ensure I will only ever use these characters when I am obliged to.  I don't mind fighting against these characters and the interesting threats that they pose, but it's not worth my time to have them actively sabotaging the team I want to use.  Have you given any thought to providing a way to switch off passive powers, or make them optional? (Heartbreaksoup)

Answer - We view mechanics such as this as part of the balance. There are a number of ways that we can control character power. One, of course, is through making their abilities less powerful. Another is allowing for outcomes that may have adverse effects to you and your team. This also factors into character identity sometimes. The Marvel Universe features a host of unique characters that are capable of doing just as much harm to themselves of their friends as they are their opponents.

Question – 1. Any plans to have new, different types of battles? More versus fights like the Puzzle Gauntlet? Say, first team to match X number of blue tiles wins, or destroy X number of strike tiles wins, or destroy your opponent's special fortified tile wins?

2. Any plans to standardize team-ups or reassess their role? For example - Most, if not all 5* characters return in 1d 4hr, yet there are 4* characters whose return times range from 4hr --- 1d 12hr (sadly they will always be benched). How are these rates calculated and distributed? (skt3187)

Answer - More game modes, YES! Ice and I have had more than a few conversations about leveraging game modes to spice things up and give players more things to do. The interest and desire is certainly there.

Question - Hey Devs, thanks for doing this Q&A. I have two questions:

1. Would you ever consider allowing characters with the same name, but who are from different universes, to be brought on the same team? For example, allowing the new Oscorp Spider-Man (who is from earth 616) and the Infinity War Spider-Man to be on the same team. I feel like this could allow for more varied team building.

2. Another gacha-type game I play called Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle introduced Extreme Z Awakenings (EZAs) into the game a few years back. EZAs are one of the best things to happen to that game because they allow older characters to become meta relevant again. An EZA is similar to a character rebalance except they are in-game events that players complete to awaken the character to a new level. EZAs helped breath new life into Dokkan because they reward longtime players for having old characters and EZAs typically give good rewards on top of the awakening itself. Would you ever consider implementing a system like this? (kirk justice)

Answer - We think that the Marvel Metaverse makes for all sorts of wacky possibilities! Though there are currently restrictions that prevent you from having a team of, say, all Spideys, I'm not exactly sold on that restriction. Not an official announcement, just saying that things aren't set in stone when it comes to "same" character restrictions on teams.

The EZAs you describe sound extremely cool! We're looking at ways that we can exemplify characters that have been updated and we'll see about drawing from source of inspiration like this; thank you!

Question - Would it be possible to give more lead time for who will be powered up/required for heroic events so players would have an opportunity to champ them? (Super Carrot)

Answer - The short answer to this is yes. The longer answer is that we're working on tools and processes to help us get content done sooner, making all of that possible.

Question - Hi there.  The first part of the recent Black Panther chain deal offered an affordable way to get a rare costume, Family Legacy.  There are a number of costumes that have been offered a single time or two years ago, and many players who have since built up their 5* rosters might want the chance to get those.  The sparkly red dress for Okoye, sparkly Thor, Daredevil's show outfit, Valkyrie's armor, etc.  Any chance you'll offer those in affordable bundles as you did with BP? (Ulik)

Answer - Yes, we want these costumes to be more affordable and accessible to our players. The Black Panther chain deal is representative of a direction we are happily moving towards for many of our costume offerings, and we're looking at unshelving more costumes soon.

Question – 1. Could you divulge if there are any effective team compositions with intentional synergy that the playerbase has yet to adopt in regular play that you expected us to discover, but we have yet to do so?

2. Are there characters that were designed that you expected us to embrace, but for whatever reason fell flat, and if so, what was the takeaway for you guys?  Sometimes it seems that the kit design for some of these characters prioritize adherence to the source material / interpretations of their powers over prioritizing creating synergy with existing characters that would encourage more use. (JRYUART)

Answer - This might be a question better answered next year because of the small number of characters that Broken Circle has released, but I'll do my best now. The number of missions that our players complete in a single day is massive. It doesn't take long for the players to try out nearly every reasonable and viable composition that includes a particular character. Our players are also immensely intelligent, and not only do they identify the target synergies, they show us ones we hadn't considered. Honestly, it's amazing and hugely humbling.

As for characters we expect the community to embrace, that's really hard to answer. Something that always comes as a surprise (but shouldn't) is how polarizing characters can be. We'll see parallel conversations in which a character is described as too complex / too simple, overpowered / unusable, meta-breaking / useless, mind-numbingly complex / oversimplified. Chasm is probably one of the best examples in recent memory, and honestly this was something we expected. From the very first draft of Chasm's design, we were all saying "players are going to love or hate this character." I can say personally that I didn't expect Chasm's abilities to be perceived as complex as they were. While it is true that he has above average complexity, the thinking was that his passive kit would offset this and allow players to operate him at varying levels of play depending on how much effor they wanted to employ.

As for prioritization, it's a balancing act. Our first design pass involves establishing character identity and colors. From there we lay out some potential ability names and brainstorm what they might do. At that point, we completely switch gears and focus on self-synergies (how the kit works with itself), team synergies, and where the character fits in meta.

Question - We can see the current count of players for Story events but not for Versus events. Any reason? Can this be changed? (St_Bernardus)

Answer - No particular reason that I'm aware of, and something to consider in a UI rework for the future.

Question - I think I am correct in saying that the AI was "dumbed" down early in the game to the current version now.

Any thoughts on reviving the smarter AI - for a Puzzle Gauntlet or Boss type event perhaps?

Could make for a different challenge if the AI saw all match 5s, tried to create cascades and more strategically used powers. (Punter1)

Answer - AI improvement is indeed something we talk about from time to time and there are plans to update / upgrade it. We've got our hands full for 2022, but this might be something we take a pass at in 2023.

Question – 1 - Will we be able to select "remove banners" from gameplay, similar to removing animations?

2 - Will we be able to have more boosts at a time than currently allowed when we buy with ISO and/or at least turn on an Auto Replenish feature? (LavaManLee)

Answer - We're investigating speeding up banners immensely, disabling them altogether, and making these sorts of options available via options.

We are also looking to allow for more boosts and other related QoL features surrounding boosts. This falls under that category of "UI Change" which we have voiced takes more time to implement than one might think. It's on the radar though!

fight4thedream

Thank you for taking the time to answer so many questions! It's really cool to see that you are thinking well into the long term regarding certain changes and character introductions. I'm very much looking forward to what you have planned for September. 

Punter1

Thanks for taking the time to answer. Soo much info here.  Makes me impatient to see the new stuff in Sept!

658_2

Thanks very much for answering these questions. BCS taking over has very obviously been great for the game

JRYUART

Thanks for the answers, really appreciated!

revskip

Great stuff.  Love the communication.  

Mrcl25

Some really cool things to expect for the future. Thanks for all the answers.

Bowgentle

Good communication, apart from some understandable non-answers.

Keep it up, thank you

danielrandkai

amazing Q+A. as others have said, it is much appreciated, and the amount of info is amazing! thanks again, and thanks for making marvel: puzzle quest exciting again. 

Bzhai

Thank you for taking the time to respond. That is no small amount of questions to get through. 

I'm very excited for DDQ 2.0 now (3 more days! Squeee!). It's also very encouraging to see that there is a roadmap for at least until 2024. 

Bubba3210

Thanks for the communication!

Godzillafan67

Love these Q&A’s and the increased communication in general. I’m so incredibly excited for MPQ’s future that I’m going to end this sentence with two periods to increase the understatement..

tfaludi

Hi! I dont see my question answered, so i post it again here:
Do you have a plan to update the rewards of shield resupply in the near future? Playing for 8+ years and receiving a standard token or some iso is not motivating to be honest!
Thanks for the answer in advance!

tfaludi

Oh, and i will shoot my other question, because why not?
Is it possible to see some statistics on my profile in the game about how many matches i played, how many pvp i played, how many tokens i opened, etc. etc. It would be nice to see those statistics (or frightening, dont know yet, which one )
Your answers until now is much appreciated btw, i dont want to seem like i am ungrateful! LOL. The devs in the past didnt communicate with the players too much, so this is a big change already!

Bowgentle

tfaludi said:

Oh, and i will shoot my other question, because why not?
Is it possible to see some statistics on my profile in the game about how many matches i played, how many pvp i played, how many tokens i opened, etc. etc. It would be nice to see those statistics (or frightening, dont know yet, which one )
Your answers until now is much appreciated btw, i dont want to seem like i am ungrateful! LOL. The devs in the past didnt communicate with the players too much, so this is a big change already!

Please do NOT show hours played.
Just, don't 🤣
I know you have those stats, please never show them to us 🤣🤣🤣

Bad

Hours played or money spent are questions which I want them to stay right up behind the Eight Ball.

Heartbreaksoup

Bzhai said:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. That is no small amount of questions to get through. 

I'm very excited for DDQ 2.0 now (3 more days! Squeee!). It's also very encouraging to see that there is a roadmap for at least until 2024. 

The new DDQ is "Releasing on the same day as the 3*/5*"  Unless they're surprising us with a 3* Immortal She-Hulk, this would presumably mean September 29.

Bzhai

Heartbreaksoup said:

The new DDQ is "Releasing on the same day as the 3*/5*"  Unless they're surprising us with a 3* Immortal She-Hulk, this would presumably mean September 29.

If that's the case sadly I think we'll have to wait awhile for the next 5*. Oh well, maybe they'll 'mess up' again and release it early.