End of Year MPQ Feature Updates

IceIX
IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
edited December 2024 in MPQ General Discussion

Heading into the end of the year, we wanted to thank our players for sticking with us for another amazing year of MPQ which saw a bunch of new features added to the game as we prepare for an exciting 2025! Our goal is to always ensure that players are enjoying these features so we definitely take your feedback into serious consideration when designing them into the game.

That being said, some of the most talked about features this year have been the recently announced Cover Exchange System which saw a ton of conversation happening since we announced it last week and Season Passes/Quests that has been a fun reward mechanic for players to tackle. In our effort to keep improving on these features, here’s a quick update on changes we plan on making in the very near (via data pushes) and soon-ish (upcoming releases) future.

COVER EXCHANGE SYSTEM UPDATE
It's been a week since the announcement of Cover Exchanges and 3 days since the function was added to the game. In that time, we've gotten a ton of great feedback from the community who spoke up about what they both liked and didn't like about the feature.

After discussing the feedback and seeing where things can improve, we’ve decided to make a few adjustments based on the current time frames available at this time.

Latest Legends Cover Exchange
We’ve decided to include the ability to exchange Latest Legends covers as part of our Cover Exchange system, but this is something that will be a part of our upcoming R318 build planned for January 6, 2025. These exchanges will cost more than a standard 5-Star exchange, which is broken out below.

Cover Exchange Costs
As a result of your feedback, we’ve made the following changes to the Cover Exchange costs, especially affecting 4 and 5-Star costs.

Current: 75HP / 100HP / 200HP / 500HP / 1250HP
Updated: 75HP / 100HP / 150HP / 400HP / 650HP (LL 1000HP)

Timing:
This will happen during the data patch this evening on Dec 20th. Note: This patch may go out a little earlier than normal nightly patches. We apologize for any inconvenience on people trying for their PVE clears, we’ll do our best to minimize disruption.

Shard Exchanges
Along with the addition of Latest Legends to the system, we plan on enabling the exchange of shards for covers early next year. This is already in the works and we plan on releasing this update by the end of January.

The Cover Exchange System is still early in its development along with many of the other features that we’ve outlined in our recent 2025 Roadmap. Please give it a shot and let us know what you think!

UPCOMING SEASON PASS UPDATES
From its evolution from Quest Vaults into a full fledged Season Pass, daily quests and ways to reward players for actively engaging with MPQ have been pretty well received and we’ve really enjoyed all the feedback that we’ve seen with this mechanic.
We've been hard at work on the feature to strengthen the rewards and better value player's time. The biggest piece of this is that players feel that completing the pass offers little to do in the game afterwards from the pass, and we agree that improvements can be made. Along with that, players enjoyed the pre-Season Pass feature of having Event Quests giving tokens to a themed Vault from months past. While that's not what the Season Pass currently does, we figured we can combine these for the best of both worlds! As such, we'll be making the following changes to the Season Pass as of January's season:

Season Vaults
Tied to every season comes the return of Season Vaults that are tied to completing quests in a Season Pass. For unlocking tiers in the Season Pass in both Free and Premium tiers, tokens will be unlocked for vaults that offer up prizes similar to previous Quest Vaults including:

  • 4-Star Ascended covers, including a 4-Star version of the Season's featured character (if applicable)
  • 5-Star covers
  • 3/4/5-Star covers related to the current Season
  • The normal Iso-8, HP, CP, Cover Pack tokens, etc

An exciting note about these vaults compared to their predecessors is that the number of items has been raised from 80-120 total items!

Season Pass Over Leveling
Starting in January, additional levels past the max in the Season Pass will give overleveling rewards. This is a repeating schedule of 10 rewards that gives additional Iso-8, Red Iso-8, CP, and Elite Tokens. But more importantly, in every set of rewards is a copy of the current featured Season character as well as a Token to the Season Vault! So no matter where you are in your Season Pass journey, you'll continue to get rewards and more pulls at the current Season Vault. We wish you all the best luck in pulling those Ascended covers and 5-Stars from the new Season Vault!

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Comments

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,001 Chairperson of the Boards

    Thanks! These HP costs for swaps are much more reasonable.

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 400 Mover and Shaker

    Very cool to see some of the feedback being taken in to consideration so quickly. Very excited to see more added to the season passes, bummer they won't be free like they were before, but at least the rewards will be worth it if you play enough.

    Cover exchange still way too rich for my blood, but I'm likely not the target since I don't have any 550's and actively avoid pushing any characters too far ahead of the pack, to keep balance in my roster.

    Thanks for the updates and happy holidays!

  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 824 Critical Contributor

    Appreciate the Season Pass Over-leveling rewards, too.

  • Timemachinego
    Timemachinego Posts: 514 Critical Contributor
    edited December 2024

    I'm literally just going to copy what I said in my alliance's LINE room regarding the exchange changes:

    "moderately positive moves at least, still not great. I'll call it sweaty crotch level now rather than wet [butt] (no offense to those with differing preferences)."

    I like everything else announced much more, but I do have to say that I appreciate how quickly BCS have swiveled in response to the negativity regarding the swap feature / CS changes. Thanks for addressing our concerns directly and letting us know what's going on in a forward matter. That shows more respect for your community than has been given in a long while.

  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 617 Critical Contributor

    Thank you for the Season Pass + Vault! Playing often and earning rewards is my jam.

  • CHRISJN
    CHRISJN Posts: 118 Tile Toppler

    For those who did the cover exchange, like me for the past 2 days, Can we get a refund from the cost of hp used? (5* cover)

  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin

    @CHRISJN said:
    For those who did the cover exchange, like me for the past 2 days, Can we get a refund from the cost of hp used? (5* cover)

    Current plan is to do a couple queries on the back end and send out refunds, no need for CS ticket involvement.

  • CHRISJN
    CHRISJN Posts: 118 Tile Toppler

    Thanks for the reply @IceIX

  • BobDucca
    BobDucca Posts: 22 Just Dropped In

    While the response to feedback is appreciated, the cost reduction for exchange is not enough, particularly for 2s since they aren’t shardable. Duping is a better option almost always, including at 5* level, especially with the likelihood of eventual 5* ascension.

    Looking forward to seeing the season pass/vault stuff though. Should increase engagement and be good for the game to have lots of quests available daily that provide valuable rewards, or at least the chance for them.

  • slidecage
    slidecage Posts: 3,496 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2024

    What do you mean by unlocking teirs you will earn a token for the vault. Do you mean each level we get token. Or will the tokens be handed out on certain levels

    With this going from 80 to 120

    It means either
    We are getting more daily/weekly/monthly quest

    Or good bye in cleaning out vault

    I think I would rather had old season pass.

    Will wait before pissing all over it but if it's per level

    Old way I get one mission done I get a token. I know it was a small chance but I could pulled it one out of 80

    Now if I complete a mission and if and big if. I get a token. Now it's 1 out of 120 chance to pull it

    Now if a mission only gives 50 xp and you need 100xp to clear a tier meaning you will have to do more work

    It says past after rank 120. There is a group of rewards that cycle every 10 levels

    So before rank 120 will every level give a token to the vault. Or will it be every 5 levels you get token

    Has. Anyone ever figure out how high you be if you complete every event now.

    Maybe they could tell us. If you complete every quest you will end at level x

    It sounds neat over level 120 you will get these rewards but how many levels is possible

    Going to be intrested to see what it looks like but how I'm reading between the lines. This is really going to suck

    And biggest question is the premium side. How much will it cost. Hp or cash

    I think I would rather had two vaults.
    Vault one for free
    Vault two what cost hp/cash but with better items

    Maybe free side. One ascended
    Pay side. 3 or 4 ascended

    But before I piss all over it I wait too see what it be like. And sure this is still a work in progress

  • SuperCarrot
    SuperCarrot Posts: 206 Tile Toppler

    Seems like some good steps. Appreciate the quick response.

  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin

    @slidecage said:

    Something to know at the outset here is that while we did take a little value from the Season Pass itself (because the average value of a Vault Token is more than what it replaced), the Vault itself is pretty much pure "bonus" additional value for the game economy. I totally get the feeling that you should be able to pull everything from the Vault at the outset, but to keep things balanced, we'd then have to take that from somewhere else, OR we eat up the bits of expansion budget we have for other features down the road unless and until we introduce other features that sink out the added resources. And I bet players as a whole would be (rightfully) angry if we cut (numbers out of nowhere, illustration only) 10K HP and 50 CP from 5-Star champ rewards to allow for it.

    That's not to say that it will or will not possible to clear this Vault (the contents are not finalized), now or in the future as we iterate. But please be aware that this is currently planned to be additional stuff to get as opposed to base expected economy income.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,001 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Theghouse honestly there's zero competitive reason to have a roster that looks like mine. It's fun for me because I can use powerful nonsense teams, but pretty meaningless competitively.

    If you've got the best 10-15 characters at 550 you are likely well ahead of me, and anybody who's got 2 of the good characters at 550 is pretty much my peer. You can only use two characters at a time! (Ok fine, sometimes three. But that's it!)

  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 349 Mover and Shaker

    @entrailbucket said:
    @Theghouse honestly there's zero competitive reason to have a roster that looks like mine. It's fun for me because I can use powerful nonsense teams, but pretty meaningless competitively.

    If you've got the best 10-15 characters at 550 you are likely well ahead of me, and anybody who's got 2 of the good characters at 550 is pretty much my peer. You can only use two characters at a time! (Ok fine, sometimes three. But that's it!)

    10-15 of the best toons covers all your bases, you might need different toons when you change between the standard PVE nodes, the tougher CNs and 5es, and wave nodes, and then different options for different enemies in PVP. If you aren't as concerned with being high competitive you can obviously do with much less

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,289 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Theghouse said:
    Reducing the swap price was the right move but this is still a crazy high HP prices to swap 5★ covers.

    Now that will cost over $3000 USD of HP just for swap costs alone, a cost none of us before have ever had to pay.

    The real crazy high price now is 4 star swaps!
    1 star = 75
    2 star = 100 (25% increase over 1 star)
    3 star = 150 (50% increase over 2 star)
    4 star = 400 (267% increase over 3 star)
    5 star = 650 (63% increase over 4 star)

    The jump in costs is way out of line compared to everything else. They should be on the order of 250ish when looking at percentage jumps. Especially since 4 star is not end game content for characters.

    Also where are you coming up with 3000 USD for swap costs? Lets say you bust a hoard for the current 3 latest (assume you have all 3 champed and need 100 champ covers for each to get to 550). That means opening roughly 2000 LTs (gets you ~300 5 covers which should be roughly 100 covers per 5). If you have a bit of bad luck in distribution you might need to swap maybe 20-30 covers to get 100/100/100 which is only 13000-15000K hero points which is not $3000 USD.

    If you are talking about OVER PULLING, as in pulling say another 700 covers (2700 total) to get 400 5 star covers so that you have 100 over pulls that you could use to say take a 450 MThor to 550 along with the current 3 in latest that is going to definitely cost you and it would cost 65000 HP. But and here's the big BUT, you also net 20000 HP for a max champed 5 so champing 3 latest nets you 60K HP which is almost the 65K cost you need to champ another 5 from the over pulls (and by the time you level up that 4th one to 550 you actually net 15K HP). So again, there is no 3000 USD cost. There is just the loss of 60K HP that you can't use on other vaults which is not nice but there is no actual cost out of pocket. To be honest, over pulling to champ other 5s was definitely never the intended idea of cover swaps and abusing it is probably what led to it being changed.

    KGB

  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 349 Mover and Shaker

    @KGB said:
    Also where are you coming up with 3000 USD for swap costs?

    My post says verbatim that's to catch up to a player with 10-15 of the best toons at 550, which is what I did, and a number of other players have done to become a competitive 550 player.

    65k HP in swap cost to get a classic 5 to 550. 20k back in champ rewards. 45k net cost. For 10 toons that 450k HP. For 15 toons thats 675k HP. At 20k HP per $100 USD stark salary rate that's a price range of $2200-$3300 USD.

    To be honest, over pulling to champ other 5s was definitely never the intended idea of cover swaps and abusing it is probably what led to it being changed

    That's the way it was used, by hundreds if not thousands of individual players, for no less than 6 years, by reaching out directly to customer service.

    If that was NEVER the intended idea, and doing so was ABUSE, why would CS do it so many times for so many players for so many years? Something doesn't add up there.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,001 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Theghouse said:

    @KGB said:
    Also where are you coming up with 3000 USD for swap costs?

    My post says verbatim that's to catch up to a player with 10-15 of the best toons at 550, which is what I did, and a number of other players have done to become a competitive 550 player.

    65k HP in swap cost to get a classic 5 to 550. 20k back in champ rewards. 45k net cost. For 10 toons that 450k HP. For 15 toons thats 675k HP. At 20k HP per $100 USD stark salary rate that's a price range of $2200-$3300 USD.

    To be honest, over pulling to champ other 5s was definitely never the intended idea of cover swaps and abusing it is probably what led to it being changed

    That's the way it was used, by hundreds if not thousands of individual players, for no less than 6 years, by reaching out directly to customer service.

    If that was NEVER the intended idea, and doing so was ABUSE, why would CS do it so many times for so many players for so many years? Something doesn't add up there.

    There's no way it's thousands. Hundreds? Maybe. Probably a lot less than you think. It certainly wasn't used for 6 years. The policy change was made 6 years ago, but at that time it was only mega-mega whales who could use it.

    It wasn't used by anyone else until years after that, and the significant increase in the last year or so is probably why it got killed off.

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