MARVEL Puzzle Quest Development Update

Just to list a couple of features I can remember from playing GoW that might be considered interesting to people if they were ported into MPQ:

• In PVP you get to nominate a defensive team
• They have dungeon runs with a pick-3 team that cannot be changed/healed before you end the run meaning that sometimes you could start a fight with only 1 character standing.
• This would be a big one, but they have kingdoms that you level up by winning fights that are kind of a quest line for the kingdom (this is the general idea I can remember). Imagine you have Avengers Tower or Professor X's mansion, etc. that you can power up by completing quests or maybe just fights with affiliated characters. In GoW you get daily gold income and mana/ability boosts from leveling your kingdom.

I'm not saying they intend to do any more than just stabilise the game and stick to the general (current) game concept by creating some new PVE and maybe an actual functioning tower event along with QOL improvements. But these are design concepts that they already have at their fingertips if they want to do more.

At some point they could candy crush it, with different board shapes, or

@entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

I’m guessing they had a project in flight at the time and it is either out now, or cancelled.

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
I> @entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

People complain, you tell them to leave. Someone SUGGESTS this MIGHT be a positive and that bugs you, too?

C'mon man, if I told everyone who complained that they should leave, that would be literally everyone. There's not enough time in the day.

I tell people to leave when they're so obviously burnt out or checked out that they can't hold any kind of normal conversation anymore, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And yeah...like, if you're super mad about bad character art or balance changes or anniversary vaults or doop codes or whatever else the complaint of the day is...we have no idea who was in charge of that stuff before. They might get better under the new guys or they might not.

I think it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else. Blue offered a relevant real world example as to why this change could yield positive results. You chose to "nobody knows anything" him. That's not a viewpoint or opinion. It's being rude.

I was agreeing with him.

@bluewolf said "Who knows how many of those people are still working there? Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations."

And by the way, "nobody knows anything" is absolutely a viewpoint or opinion. We've got people on here asking to see the coders' resumes and trying to armchair project-manage this whole thing, without even knowing who worked on what or when. Calling for BCS to be fired was a popular take!

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
I> @entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

People complain, you tell them to leave. Someone SUGGESTS this MIGHT be a positive and that bugs you, too?

C'mon man, if I told everyone who complained that they should leave, that would be literally everyone. There's not enough time in the day.

I tell people to leave when they're so obviously burnt out or checked out that they can't hold any kind of normal conversation anymore, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And yeah...like, if you're super mad about bad character art or balance changes or anniversary vaults or doop codes or whatever else the complaint of the day is...we have no idea who was in charge of that stuff before. They might get better under the new guys or they might not.

I think it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else. Blue offered a relevant real world example as to why this change could yield positive results. You chose to "nobody knows anything" him. That's not a viewpoint or opinion. It's being rude.

I was agreeing with him.

@bluewolf said "Who knows how many of those people are still working there? Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations."

And by the way, "nobody knows anything" is absolutely a viewpoint or opinion. We've got people on here asking to see the coders' resumes and trying to armchair project-manage this whole thing, without even knowing who worked on what or when. Calling for BCS to be fired was a popular take!

Apologies if I read your intention wrong. My bad.

But I maintain that pointing out that a particular company has a resume that is on point is not nothing. It's relevant information that adds more context than we had.

Maybe take a look back at that whole exchange?

Not to speak for him (again) but @bluewolf is pointing out that they did the Gems of War Unity transition in 2017, almost 10 years ago. The average game developer changes jobs every two years.

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
I> @entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

People complain, you tell them to leave. Someone SUGGESTS this MIGHT be a positive and that bugs you, too?

C'mon man, if I told everyone who complained that they should leave, that would be literally everyone. There's not enough time in the day.

I tell people to leave when they're so obviously burnt out or checked out that they can't hold any kind of normal conversation anymore, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And yeah...like, if you're super mad about bad character art or balance changes or anniversary vaults or doop codes or whatever else the complaint of the day is...we have no idea who was in charge of that stuff before. They might get better under the new guys or they might not.

I think it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else. Blue offered a relevant real world example as to why this change could yield positive results. You chose to "nobody knows anything" him. That's not a viewpoint or opinion. It's being rude.

I was agreeing with him.

@bluewolf said "Who knows how many of those people are still working there? Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations."

And by the way, "nobody knows anything" is absolutely a viewpoint or opinion. We've got people on here asking to see the coders' resumes and trying to armchair project-manage this whole thing, without even knowing who worked on what or when. Calling for BCS to be fired was a popular take!

Apologies if I read your intention wrong. My bad.

But I maintain that pointing out that a particular company has a resume that is on point is not nothing. It's relevant information that adds more context than we had.

Maybe take a look back at that whole exchange?

Not to speak for him (again) but @bluewolf is pointing out that they did the Gems of War Unity transition in 2017, almost 10 years ago. The average game developer changes jobs every two years.

But proprietary information stays with companies. It's also telling that the studio has been around that long and hasn't folded despite being in an industry with volatile turnover. Companies have resumes, too.

And I did look back at the whole exchange. I'm not defending blue. I'm arguing a point.

I have no idea what point you're arguing.

What does "it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else" mean?

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
I> @entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

People complain, you tell them to leave. Someone SUGGESTS this MIGHT be a positive and that bugs you, too?

C'mon man, if I told everyone who complained that they should leave, that would be literally everyone. There's not enough time in the day.

I tell people to leave when they're so obviously burnt out or checked out that they can't hold any kind of normal conversation anymore, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And yeah...like, if you're super mad about bad character art or balance changes or anniversary vaults or doop codes or whatever else the complaint of the day is...we have no idea who was in charge of that stuff before. They might get better under the new guys or they might not.

I think it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else. Blue offered a relevant real world example as to why this change could yield positive results. You chose to "nobody knows anything" him. That's not a viewpoint or opinion. It's being rude.

I was agreeing with him.

@bluewolf said "Who knows how many of those people are still working there? Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations."

And by the way, "nobody knows anything" is absolutely a viewpoint or opinion. We've got people on here asking to see the coders' resumes and trying to armchair project-manage this whole thing, without even knowing who worked on what or when. Calling for BCS to be fired was a popular take!

Apologies if I read your intention wrong. My bad.

But I maintain that pointing out that a particular company has a resume that is on point is not nothing. It's relevant information that adds more context than we had.

Maybe take a look back at that whole exchange?

Not to speak for him (again) but @bluewolf is pointing out that they did the Gems of War Unity transition in 2017, almost 10 years ago. The average game developer changes jobs every two years.

But proprietary information stays with companies. It's also telling that the studio has been around that long and hasn't folded despite being in an industry with volatile turnover. Companies have resumes, too.

And I did look back at the whole exchange. I'm not defending blue. I'm arguing a point.

I have no idea what point you're arguing.

What does "it's very easy to defend a contrarian viewpoint if you hand wave the feelings of everyone else" mean?

That was said when I misinterpreted what you and blue were talking about. I have apologized for that. I can do it again if that will help.

I am no longer talking about your conversation with blue, specifically. I am simply saying that I am encouraged by the fact that the new team has a history. And I do not agree with the premise that "we don't know anything". I especially don't agree with that premise if you're using it to tell people not to feel optimistic. It just seemed for a while there that if someone complains, entrail is there to tell them not to. And if someone is happy for a reason, there's entrail again saying we shouldn't be.

However, it appears you don't think you are doing that. So, I tap out.

Definitely agree that people on here should be left to be optimistic for once. It doesn’t happen often enough without it being stamped out.

@Borstock said:
I> @entrailbucket said:

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@SaltyRepertoire48 said:
Thank God! I've been saying hire some qualified people. The world is healing.

How do you know the new developers are more "qualified" than the old ones?

The fact they've produced a successful re-write of a game (Gems of War) to Unity for PC/Mobile platforms would qualify them.

KGB

Dunno, I'd like to see each employee's resume before making any decisions.

Indeed. Although I know this is tongue in cheek. The rewrite was in 2017.

Who knows how many of those people are still working there?

Anyway taking a wait and see attitude is always best in these situations. GoW has similar gameplay in match, but the rest is pretty far afield from MPQ. Also hard to read. The font is so tiny on my phone…..darn my eyes.

Well, and if these new people are so good at transitioning games to Unity, why didn't they execute the Unity transition? Why have BCS do it then bring them in afterwards?

We don't know anything. These guys could be better or worse or exactly the same.

People complain, you tell them to leave. Someone SUGGESTS this MIGHT be a positive and that bugs you, too?

You have to remember that entrail’s secret identity is the Ultimate Contrarian. Disagreement just fuels his power.

@bluewolf said:
It would be easier to be more optimistic if they told us a plan of some sort now.

All I’m reading is vague promises of future improvements and more to come in 2026.

That’s well and good but how about some kind of more solid information? Even just something about areas they plan to work on. Like say UI improvements for pve or making some new events for PvP.

"Starting in 2026, IP2 will transition into the role of being our main development team in charge of MPQ and its full live service operations. While the IP2 team have already begun familiarising themselves with the project, as you can imagine, MPQ is a big game with a long history, so they will be transitioning over the coming months. Their first priorities will be ensuring content continues to be delivered smoothly and a focus on some QoLs while they come up to speed, before taking bigger swings. But the team is very keen and already making plans. We expect to have exciting things to talk about early next year after the team has had a chance to fully get to know the game."

This paragraph lays out a timeline. Comments in () are my interpretations based on being in S/W development.
1) IP2 takes over starting in January (don't expect anything between now and end of year beyond trivial bug fixes).
2) They will be transitioning over several months (it will take that long before they can make real changes to the game itself).
3) First priority is ensuring smooth content (game loads, no crashes, no buggy offers, PvE/PvP events) and a focus on QoLs (reducing battery usage/over heating/crazy CPU/hard drive requirements).

To me, there will be no new content till at least June of next year (6 month transition to rewrite most of the game). Hence why they said they'd talk more in the new year after IP2 has given a timeline on the rewrite so they know when they can start talking about new game features.

KGB

@Gymp28 said:

@MgoBlue51 said:

@bluewolf said:

@MgoBlue51 said:
Exactly what does any of this mean? I get that there will be new developers, and I completely understand why. But it's a lot of words, and none of them show anything truly on the horizon. Maybe what's coming is that players are able to actually... Play? 6 stars and tower mode are fine, but let's not act like those are amazing improvements. They're basically just a natural progression, i.e. more of the same. This post should have been discussing what we can expect. Instead, we got who we can expect it from. Anyone wanna guess if it's STILL just more of the same?

It’s a match-3 game with a roster building component. Or a roster building game with a match-3 mini game mechanic. Depends on how you look at it. The point is the game itself doesn’t have tons of unexplored design space left when it’s about manipulating gems and taking down the
opponents’ health as quickly as possible.

It’s funny because when people talked about 6s since Golden Oldie I’d say “why? We can clear things turn 0” and “you’d have to make the game harder to make a reason for 6s”. And here we are.

I am having trouble imagining what’s next but apparently it could be just “play matches longer because your opponent won’t die for several turns and make sure your team can outlast theirs”. I dunno how compelling that is exactly. But keep adding levels and covers! For a whole bunch of useless characters!

I kind of feel like we’ve reached the end of new stuff they can do with character design although maybe some different game modes might happen.

All of that is possible. But if we are as far as we can go, why even bother swapping to unity in the first place? I know it's tough to keep creating new and unseen things. And you're right, it's a gem matching game at its heart, no argument here. But if they're not moving forward, they're standing still. What keeps us spending money? And without spending, how does it survive?

I'm not saying the game is gonna die, it's lasted this long without fully evolving ever. But they have already lost a good chunk of people with this buggy nonsense, and I'm sure many people are still teetering on the edge of quitting. Time to buy back some good will, no? No handouts needed, just find something fun or cool or helpful to inject into the game. Otherwise, why even employ any coders except those who create new characters? The other coders are clearly not doing much.

I don’t believe they’ve reached the end of the design space with character releases. I think the Hydra bunch have all been really interesting, Viper especially! She’s an absolute monster with a unique mechanic that feeds off burst health damage.
It would be interesting to have some more varied PvE events vs different combinations of the 300+ characters in the game, most of which no-one ever gets to play against.
But, as people seem to dislike simulator, and if that sounds like ‘more of the same’ to you, perhaps it’s your time with the game that’s done, rather than the games development?

On the other hand if you’ve got fantastic ideas for new game modes they could implement, feel free to share them. I’d certainly be interested, and chances are the new dev team will be more likely to listen to suggestions (BCS were very engaged at the start of their tenure).

I've said it many times, I've been here for a long time, maybe it's sunk cost fallacy, but I plan on continuing to play. I have not had as much trouble with the bugs, but I have lost some good "friends" made through this game due to them being locked out. I can't say the game is exciting, but it's something to do as a means of zoning out. Just because I'm not irate doesn't mean I can't express some disappointment.

I honestly expected some sort of QoL improvement from unity. Maybe it's still coming, but the radio silence (which seems to be their M.O.) isn't great. I was honestly hoping there would be a way of breaking up a champion for covers. Not exactly a 1:1, but I have a few 3* champs that I then pulled a 4* ascended version from a random vault. It would be nice to turn the 3* into some covers to apply to the 4* instead, no?

I do miss the gauntlet and the events that locked out certain characters. I wish welcome to shield wasn't the same chars over and over. I wish there were some reason to use my random characters other than "let's try this nonsense to keep myself entertained". My engagement in the game is lower than before, and that's ok. I just wish it felt more like fun and less like a temporary means of zoning out from the real world. I'm sure plenty of that falls on me, but it would be appreciated if I had a modicum of assistance.