New Boss Event: Quandary Info

bigjojo04

@UnityGamer said:
For those who are upset of the recent Quandary events and have aired their grievances in their social media outlets, I have an update for you. Copy-pasting from the Reddit:

Devpool, in response to Pharoah_Rambam:
Heard and appreciated. We probably won’t be so strict on ability lock out in future runs. You all make a great point. Clearly the goal was the prevent auto-win solutions driven purely by brute forcing problems, but we probably took it too far. Thanks for the voice.

Me thinks there will either be a do-over of this event or something else, not sure. But they have heard, and will look to do better.

Well according to the calendar this event is supposed to run again in 2 weeks so I’d fathom to guess that we’ll see some tweaks to few things for that second run of it.

Daredevil217

I’m glad that there are people that like it. To each their own. Everyone is going to have their own subjective experience but I’m guessing the developers are not only hearing the outcry but are viewing engagement metrics and realizing that on the whole this is a bad event for their goals. Those who love it would have played any boss event probably. Those that are actively leaving until it’s over… yeah that’s not what you want during a season meant to attract people and be a huge celebration.

To the people saying “bosses are supposed to be hard! This is supposed to be a challenge. You all just want rewards and don’t want to work for them!” (Paraphrasing). First of all, this isn’t a challenge. This is by no means even puzzley. I like the drop the tiles to the ground (not a popular take I know) even though it is the most time consuming. That’s fine. It isn’t a timed event. But I like it because it’s the only one with a puzzle element. Thinking of how to manipulate a board that constantly shifts- which is key if you can’t fire powers so you aren’t locked into RNG- is a fun puzzle to solve. All the other ones are different variations of memory games. Or just random RNG. It’s by no means challenging or difficult. We know HOW to solve the “puzzle” so it loses its luster big time.

I understand not having access to powers. Not only does it not allow you to brute force it, but it puts players on an even playing field. People who just downloaded are on the same footing as 550 day 1 players. It’s an interesting take but super deft, as uh… people want to fire powers! It’s like they learned nothing from the Chasm feedback.

Boss quandary has been okay for me. I actually don’t even know what she does. But I’m using my level 594 Nico, 479 4* Blade and 473 Wong. If Wong spams strikes, Nico buffs them so high that even 10% damage wrecks Quandry. If he spams shields I take no damage no matter what happens (well Nico does but it’s fine). Blade is there to passively provide more strikes to be buffed. So I’m probably doing what they don’t want and brute forcing it but whatever. That’s what a billion years playing this game should afford me, plus it’s a unique pairing of characters I probably wouldn’t have come up with otherwise (but this this is more because of the heroic restrictions which I love, rather than the boss who is kind of meh). If you made it so you couldn’t brute force Apoc and to down the horsemen before downing him, he would be the perfect boss. Just saying. As it stands that’s as close to perfect as we’ve gotten. I also like the one where we have to prevent the bombs from dropping. Ultron? Haven’t seen that one in awhile.

The bounties suck. It’s just a grind fest. If you felt sad you couldn’t fire powers with Quandry you get to spam plenty here. But it’s just mindless box checking. This seems to have much higher player engagement (as seen by us crushing the initial goals), but there are some pretty sweet prizes attached to it. I must say, the community coming together and asking questions about optimal teams and how people are making X color matches or downing X enemies is nice to see. But god, doing the same mindless task over and over is soul sucking. Wait… did I just describe Mpq?

I guess to continue my “review of the anniversary” I’ll speak to the rewards which have been a mixed bag. The fan favorites are the three top meta glass cannon characters and in my opinion, the best store we’ve gotten in a long time- maybe ever. People really seem to like those kinds of characters. So that’s great. The increase in Master Supports is HUGE! Those to me are the rarest token in the game so that’s a big get. Though part of me can’t help but to think of then as stock being sold before the market tanks. I feel that once they roll out the level up system to supports, Master tokens value go way down. Conversely, getting two stones is also a big get and their value increases big time when the ability to level up comes into effect. So that’s a trade off in our favor.

The big drop in anniversary rewards is not in the new meta essentials vaults, store, community challenge, or freebies. It’s in the main vault that people literally hoard a year on to pour into. The removal a 5 stars at a time when their value is at an all time low (thanks ascension!) is odd. The removal of HP at a time when that resource need is at an all time high (thanks again ascension!) makes perfect sense, but may land to players as a money grab. The real move would have been MORE 5* covers and less HP (instead of both being down). It would probably had make people subjectively happy but also increase the pressure for slots.

The only other thing to speak to is the new character (kind of what I’m known for), but she hasn’t been released yet. So I guess that wraps it up. Definitely doesn’t feel like a 10th anniversary or the best one we’ve ever had. They definitely took some giant swings, which I love, but many of them missed. Which is okay if they are willing to rectify and from the sounds of it, it looks like they are. I’d rather have a team that seeks to understand, is okay with making mistakes, and tries to make it right when they do, than one that tries to be perfect every time. I think we’re in good hands for the next 10 years personally.

bigjojo04

The daily quandaries, though they have a 24 hour time limit, are still able to be completed once they’ve disappeared so regardless of how dull they may be I would imagine most of the community should complete them all eventually if they play at their normal rate and pace of play. You just can’t see them. It would be better for them to just always be visible but there’s really no need to rush through them everyday unless you’re just that adamant about knowing what you have to do to achieve them.

Borstock

I love the Quandary boss event. shrug

Blackstone

I've enjoyed the event... It's been nice having something different and not just destroying the new content easily...

Which would likely be what people were complaining about if powers weren't locked out... Someone would find the powers that trivializes each puzzle, everyone would just do that, then enough people would complain that it's too easy, and we'd be having the same discussion we have with every other event.

Other side of the coin: the rest of my alliance hates the event. They just stopped playing it... Some haven't bothered playing at all since trying Quandary... At the moment, it looks like 4 players have quit (3 under a year new players, 1 player who's been around for at least 3 years) ...I know the rule that people announcing their departure on the internet generally come back... But casual players that just drop off with no notice because something frustrated them is a different animal. I'll be kicking (because they won't leave... They'll just stop playing) and replacing at least two of them by next week because they won't be back.

And that's just the beginning. Others who have opted out of playing the event (not even giving them the answers changes their minds... And these are players that have asked for help going through their roster to develop teams) will fall off as well.

Once they find an outlet more satisfying than Deadpool's daily, which is all they're even looking at right now, I'll see them at the bottom of the who's played today alliance notice... And they won't respond because they're gone.

I'm not trying to be negative...I really have liked the event... but I can't ignore what I'm seeing. I rotate a new player in here and there, but this is the first time I can point to an event and say "this is the direct cause of several people quiting".

I'm an old timer. They can get away with frustrating me with "195 green matches" because I'm already addicted. Even if I take a break, I'll be back.

Newer players, which are needed for the game to grow and stick around for another 10 years, won't be if they're disliking a whole event and looking for other games.

I'd much rather see people complaining an event was too easy than see players leaving the game because an event was too hard.

I'm conclusion, I'd like to see this event run again... With no locking out of powers at all...

I'm sure there are several great team combinations that will be fun to mess around with if we have the chance...

...But I could still choose to not fire any powers if I want to puzzle it out the hard way...

Meanwhile, those that dislike the current iteration might actually enjoy it due to having the chance to run otherwise nonmeta teams to complete the objectives.

... And I won't lose 20% of my alliance to one event.

For the health of the game I don't mind setting aside my personal opinion on the event on favor of an overall better experience.

Bzhai

Even if we could > @meadowsweet said:

Personally, I've enjoyed the Quandary boss event so far. It's a boss event, so it's supposed to be different & challenging. I'm not sure why there seems to be so much anger compared to the boss events for Galactus, Thanos, Ultron, Basilica, etc. but I have a theory why we're currently in a 'perfect storm' that's upsetting many players:

1) There are two duplicate Quandary boss events: regular and heroic mode. So if you're a completionist, that's twice as tedious right there.

2) The only other PVE event at the moment is Puzzle Gauntlet, which folks have soured on over time as the nodes often feel more random, dumb luck, tedious, and frustrating (although this week's has been better than most in my opinion.)

3) On top of that, we're also being tasked with the Daily Quandaries Quests, which have been extremely tedious: Remove 60 Yellow tiles, THEN Make 75 Red matches, THEN Remove 160 Blue tiles, THEN Make 195 Red matches, etc. Again, if you're a completionist trying to grind out every single one, there's a lot of monotonous replaying of the same nodes over and over and over...

Any one of those tedious events might be acceptable by itself, but having to go through all three simultaneously appears to be breaking a lot of players' brains this week?

I think this one nails it for most of the playerbase. Boss events have become a bigger timesink ever since heroics were introduced and people are feeling burnt out. This event is worse because some fights drag on when you have a bad board. Most of us play in short burst throughout the day and can't afford to spend 10 minutes on just one fight.

I had a player rage quit within the first 2 hours of the event mostly due to frustration of the mechanics but also the realisation that you have to go through this for the next few days. Luckily we managed to coax them back. The rest of my alliance is soldiering on, but only because we're committed and don't want to let the group down.

LavaManLee

Round 8 is beyond brutal. It makes me wonder how much testing was actually done. There is no way anybody who approved it actually thought it would be "fun".

Borstock

@LavaManLee said:
Round 8 is beyond brutal. It makes me wonder how much testing was actually done. There is no way anybody who approved it actually thought it would be "fun".

How is it brutal? Are you a 4* player? I'm a 5* player and haven't had any problems. Did I just answer my own question?

LavaManLee

@Borstock said:

@LavaManLee said:
Round 8 is beyond brutal. It makes me wonder how much testing was actually done. There is no way anybody who approved it actually thought it would be "fun".

How is it brutal? Are you a 4* player? I'm a 5* player and haven't had any problems. Did I just answer my own question?

Nope. You didn't answer your own question. Yep. 5* player. Four at 550. But it doesn't matter in Heroics because none of them can be used. If there is some secret team that makes it easier, would be great to know.

Borstock

@LavaManLee said:

@Borstock said:

@LavaManLee said:
Round 8 is beyond brutal. It makes me wonder how much testing was actually done. There is no way anybody who approved it actually thought it would be "fun".

How is it brutal? Are you a 4* player? I'm a 5* player and haven't had any problems. Did I just answer my own question?

Nope. You didn't answer your own question. Yep. 5* player. Four at 550. But it doesn't matter in Heroics because none of them can be used. If there is some secret team that makes it easier, would be great to know.

I've been using Str5nge, Sc5rlet Witch, and D3adpool. I can usually run through the whole thing without using a healthpack as long as one of the nodes isn't the fortified tile one. On the boss node, chase purple for Wade's bonus damage, since that is Q's strongest color.

allen_koholic

Honest question - do the devs bother with play testing any more? Like, did someone sit down and move tiles against boss-quandary or node-quandary’s and think “this is fun”? “Tediously grinding is a fantastic way to spend time. This character, which we wholly conjured into life and can do anything with, feels fun and engaging.”

Also, we all know what’s going to happen when the event runs again - they’re going nerf her damage, nerf her damage reduction and unlock the roster without addressing the real issue that this character should be dropped forever into the sun or completely, 100% reworked. Buffs/nerfs won’t fix the underlying problem.

Also, speaking of locked rosters (which i usually support) - who thought a locked roster was a good idea during the 10th Anniversary event? Let’s celebrate this game by …. Locking out your favorite marvel characters!

All around I just am left time and time again wondering what game infinity-1 is playing or developing because it ain’t MPQ.

entrailbucket

I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

Blackstone

@entrailbucket said:
I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

I'm in the same boat as you.

The only thing I can think of is if they maybe keep the heroic version as is but allow abilities in the regular version since there are two versions anyway. Or allow abilities and we can choose to not use them.

I like the event, but I'm concerned about the effect on the player base as a whole.

entrailbucket

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:
I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

I'm in the same boat as you.

The only thing I can think of is if they maybe keep the heroic version as is but allow abilities in the regular version since there are two versions anyway. Or allow abilities and we can choose to not use them.

I like the event, but I'm concerned about the effect on the player base as a whole.

I'm not sure that would address the complaints, though. "Allowing abilities" seems to come up frequently but it seems like a lot of folks have more fundamental problems with it.

Blackstone

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:
I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

I'm in the same boat as you.

The only thing I can think of is if they maybe keep the heroic version as is but allow abilities in the regular version since there are two versions anyway. Or allow abilities and we can choose to not use them.

I like the event, but I'm concerned about the effect on the player base as a whole.

I'm not sure that would address the complaints, though. "Allowing abilities" seems to come up frequently but it seems like a lot of folks have more fundamental problems with it.

Agreed. I just can't think of a better solution.

I don't think everyone will ever be happy, but I wouldn't want to see events like this never happen, so it seems like a compromise that would at least alleviate some issues.

I'm glad they tried something new though. Hopefully it's a learning experience that leads to something great in the future more people can agree on.

entrailbucket

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:

@entrailbucket said:
I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

I'm in the same boat as you.

The only thing I can think of is if they maybe keep the heroic version as is but allow abilities in the regular version since there are two versions anyway. Or allow abilities and we can choose to not use them.

I like the event, but I'm concerned about the effect on the player base as a whole.

I'm not sure that would address the complaints, though. "Allowing abilities" seems to come up frequently but it seems like a lot of folks have more fundamental problems with it.

Agreed. I just can't think of a better solution.

I don't think everyone will ever be happy, but I wouldn't want to see events like this never happen, so it seems like a compromise that would at least alleviate some issues.

I'm glad they tried something new though. Hopefully it's a learning experience that leads to something great in the future more people can agree on.

I wish some players could accept that they won't like 100% of this game, and there's no requirement that you play everything.

I hate 5* Scarlet Witch. I HATE her. When she's boosted, I hate playing PvP. She's everywhere, she punishes you for being good at match-3, she slows everything down... she's just obnoxious. A lot of people like her and that's great. She's not for me.

So I basically just don't play those events. I'm not worried about missing those rewards, or falling behind, or letting my alliance down, or whatever else. It's not fun, so I don't bother. This is a game, and the point of it is to have fun, so when an event isn't fun, I don't play it.

Edit: some players. I don't want to sound too much like our dearly departed comrade. Seems like plenty of folks hate this thing and chose not to play it.

allen_koholic

@entrailbucket said:
I really like this event, but I tend to like really difficult MPQ content and really puzzle-y content too. Both things are very unpopular with certain parts of the playerbase and that's fine.

Here's my question: how could they run an event like this for the players who like it, without making others angry?

Would it be ok with you if they ran it alongside/in addition to a traditional PvE or boss event? Does it need to be completely, obviously optional, with no rewards at all, so you don't "miss out" on anything?

If your answer is just that they can never ever do something like this at all, I don't think that's fair.

Which part of this event are we talking about fixing? The Boss-Quandary that is a fairly boring and tedious exercise, but ultimately just meh? Or the puzzle-node Quandary that locks out powers and can absolutely RNG you to death?

Boss-Quandary needs a rework on her powers. At best, she feels like a tankier molten man, but that’s being generous. Other than the one time she obnoxiously went away and another Quandary showed up, it’s just a slog to beat her and that’s it. I’d imagine a puzzle-based boss would play like Boss Apoc. But nope. I don’t know a good quick rework, but I’m also not paid to develop that. I know what they will do, which is just nerf the numbers, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issue of what the hell makes this character special?

The puzzle nodes need an overhaul and need to allow powers.

Some of them aren’t terrible. Match colors in a certain order could be good, if it wasn’t the same. board. every. time. Dropping the special tiles is actually good.

But Hue Shift is obnoxious. The hidden tile or the fortified tiles one are RNG dependent. And you can die on those and it’s stupid. Easiest fix is probably just take away the damage done to your team. You can either remove the RNG dependence and allow powers so you can solve your way out of trouble. Or not punish players for things they can’t control, like getting chipped to death try to get one tile in the bottom **** corner.

Bad

Let's search some things on my memory...
Did players complain about puzzle gauntlet? Yeah, a lot. Some of them absolutely hated it.
Did players complain about heroics? Yeah, a lot, some of them absolutely hated it.
Did players complain about introducing to...? Yeah, of course.
Did players complain about scl10? Yeah, a lot. Some of them absolutely hated it.
Did players complain about shards system? Yeah, a lot. Some of them absolutely hated it.
I think I'd finish sooner thinking about one new feature which some players didn't absolutely hated it.
And now it comes quandary...

entrailbucket

@allen_koholic that's not what I was asking though.

How could they run this event, exactly as it is, without any complaints?

If they ran it alongside some other event would that be ok? If it was an extra thing with no rewards, would that be ok?

ct451

They need to add an in-game like/dislike button to gauge the true feelings of the whole player base. All this trying to make the game more challenging by adding roster restrictions and power usage restrictions and what have you is just annoying.
They need to stop listening to the hardcore players in here. They are ruining the game.