MPQ- Why did my favorite game turn out this way?

Unknown

Hi, Fiesher here and I started playing MPQ since last September.

Being a fan of Marvel (I play the F2P Marvel Online- which is a great game btw) and a complete nut over Puzzle Quest (I own all the Puzzle Quest games), I loved what I saw and proceeded to build up my team. One thing led to another and I finally got to the point where I felt the game had given me enough joy and it is time for me to return the favor by spending $50usd and buying some gold to max out my Ragnarok character. At that time (November/December), Lightning Rounds were the rage and you would need a beefy Raggy to compete and place in the top 8 for specific covers and to progress the roster.

At the end of December, D3p suddenly nerfed Ragnarok to the ground. My friends who played the game with me, and who also invested in maxing Raggy, were incensed. D3p proclaimed that the Funbalance era was upon us. Raggy was a mistake and the game will be moving on from that point as a more balanced and friendly game where characters can compete on equal ground.

They quit but I remained. Even though my investment was neutered and no compensation was given, I could see D3p's point of view and I was willing to bite the bullet if my favorite game could turn out better in the long run.

From January onwards, the game I knew changed drastically.

Lightning Rounds were made into a single bracket grind-fest and the rewards neutered, so much so that if you made top 8, you would not know which character token you get and that took a lot away from building a team efficiently. Tournaments also moved away from themes and started to feature a fixed Character, which meant that I could only bring in 2 Characters from my roster instead of 3, and that took away more play options from me, as I derive much joy from testing several options revolving around 3 characters (e.g. Hood, OBW, Patch. Patch, Mags, Hood. Hulk, Hawkeye, Patch .. etc)

Long story short, gameplay options were taken away from the players, rewards were harder to achieve - which of course made the whole gaming experience much less fun than before. With hindsight, I feel that the Ragnarok Nerf was for the better theory-wise, but D3p failed to build on that, and instead went the other way to stifle the player-base.

It is amazing that I have only spent 50 USD on a game that has Marvel and Puzzle Quest written all over it. Why? I do not want to support an environment like that. D3p systematically nerfed the character packs to the worthless luck-fest they are now, instead of in the past- where although expensive, you could control where your hard-earned money was going to in building your dream team, just like in the comics etc.

I loved this game, and I still like the mechanics of Marvel and Puzzle Quest. But why can't common sense reign for once and D3p listen to the customer base instead of punishing us for supporting the game since the start? Do not get me started on why I am being punished for HEALING my team in PvE, with a 3star character (Spiderman) I painstakingly built up cover by cover over a few months. Why is the game punishing me for playing properly and being loyal to it?

For starters, packs can be lowered in price if the luck-fest is to continue so that a player can realistically pay his way to a team he likes. If not, then a Cover Shop can be implemented where covers can be bought for a certain amount of gold, or special character animations can be bought as well for cosmetic purposes. All these will lead to greater revenue I believe.

All my friends say that I am a fool to stay on in this game seeing that all these negatives are there. But the thing is I am a Marvel Puzzle Quest fan, and there is nothing I want more than to see it succeed. It pains me to see the game go this way, soulless and throwing new character after character, month after month, into robotic events that feature them so as to "force" the player-base to either buy them and level them to compete in those said tourneys.

Remember that goodwill can be infectious. Marvel Online just celebrated its one year anniversary, and gave all players rewards worth about 20 usd (in-store value). The player-base was happy and spent in the store in return, happy that those developers value us and love us for who we are and what we contributed to the game.

MPQ does not even need to do that. All I hope for in the next few months is that they make the game more rewarding than tedious. Do not punish, and be nice to us for once. Give compensation properly instead of the ones proposed to my maxed Spiderman. 1000g and 86k ISO is an insult to the time, effort and total value of a lv141 Spiderman that I built.

Please do not disrespect the time I spent. Burning bridges is not cool, and I hope that my post can help provoke some thoughts and ideas from the community to make this game whole again, and back on track to the vision of Funbalance.

Unknown

Ohhh I have played many games on the play store and believe me mpq is one of the best when it comes to bugs and response.
But I do agree with what you have said, they are making the game less and less enjoyable that's for sure.
I also played this game f2p and then dropped money in it. This game use to be awesome with lots of rewards.
Not anymore:( ... Now its just a grind fest overtime job.
I stopped spending money and play casually now. Less frustration. Just dont give it all ur time and effort. Drop to the status of "I dont care" and u will enjoy it again.
Funny how with 3 lvl141 heroes I cant ever rank as high as those with lvl85 heroes. Just amazingly illogical lol. The stronger u get ur roster, the less u win. Baffling tbh.

I use to read herw on the forums but didn't believe hahaha. I am a believer as well now. The more u progress in this game the more frustrating it gets.

Unknown

Yes, I am playing casually now as well. But just perplexed with how the game can turn out for the better with just a few "simple" moves on the dev's side, but it seems like those moves are not part of their agenda at all.

This might be the only game where you do not want to progress at all because you get punished for it, and stay at lv85 team and have fun playing a puzzle game instead of grinding through numbers