Marvel Puzzle Quest

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JaySevenZero
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Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can leave your thoughts regarding Marvel Puzzle Quest for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
kintaris

Re: 314: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by kintaris »

Well, I sort of hate whoever decided to put this on the setlist this year.

Marvel Puzzle Quest is the only match-3, microtransaction-laden mobile game that ever got its claws into me and I have no idea why. I deleted it a long time ago.

Seeing it on the Cane and Rinse schedule compelled me to take another look,to see if I couldn't work out the secret sauce that made me get addicted to this game in particular.

It's been at least a solid 6 hours cumulatively since I reinstalled. I still don't know why I'm hooked, but it's now approaching 1am and here I am mulling over my superhero roster and deciding who needs replacing. (Sorry, Cap, you're not pulling your weight)

A heartfelt curse on whoever is responsible for this. May all of your tokens be Standard. ;)
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ratsoalbion
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Re: 314: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by ratsoalbion »

You need to direct your ire at Mr Karl Moon.
Bakers_12

Re: Our next podcast recording (7.4.18) - 314: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by Bakers_12 »

Played this for months then lost all progress deleted it
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Simonsloth
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Re: Our next podcast recording (7.4.18) - 314: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by Simonsloth »

Puzzle quest games historically have been right up my street so having fallen out of love with mobile games I was hoping this would be the one that brought be back.

Unfortunately it’s not what I hoped it would be. I wonder if there’s an element of being a latecomer to the marvel puzzle quest party as I find the number of flashing icons and pop ups overwhelming. I suspect this is how new Destiny or Pokemon go players feel in that the slowly added content has been drip fed over the years so easier to process. To switch either of these games on now would be overwhelming I’m sure.

The basic game seems fine but i find the window dressing turns me away. Now the moment I load it up on my phone I almost always close it after one game and load up the cane and rinse forum instead which is far more compelling.
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stvnorman
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Re: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by stvnorman »

I love a match-three, but this had way too much crap going on around the core gameplay to keep me playing for long. What I did appreciate was its colourblind-friendly design, which has often put paid to many a similar game for me. I’m just not into Marvel enough to have persevered I guess.
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raisinbman
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Re: Marvel Puzzle Quest

Post by raisinbman »

Was surprised to see this C&R show, and was one of the first I checked out. I’ve currently got 1837 days played according to the ingame day counter(give or take a few due to mishaps) as I write this. That’s a little over 5 years played. MPQ is definitely in my top played games in competition with DOTAs 1&2, and WOW. I initially started it as a broke college kid in seeing something about Deadpool joining MPQ for the anniversary. I needed time to fill, and this game DEFINITELY fits that bill.

Of course, the standard F2P game stuff greeted me - a "generous" start only to learn, by time you're sold on the concept, you're going to have to put some money in in order to keep up with the Joneses. But actually, if you were to play entirely too much, you'd be fine. This distinction allowed me to not immediately trash the game. That being said, any new player will be hard-pressed not to spend unless they're patience is that of a saint: they're probably going to have to do what I did eventually, which is to purchase HP(rarer currency) for roster slots. If you've made it this far, chances are you're aware, but Marvel has a HUGE roster of villains, heroes, and strange in-betweens, and you're going to need pretty much all of them to play this game. If you can get around that hurdle, you're actually in pretty good shape in terms of not having to purchase anything. But it is a big ask.

This game also lead me to my journey of streaming - one day, I came to the conclusion 'wow, that question hasn't been answered before? Why isn't anyone streaming this?'. I've mentioned it before, but if you see me as the old, has been athlete on a hypothetical TV show who's known for his glory days on the field, but doesn't really do much anymore, Marvel Puzzle Quest would've been my sport. It currently still holds my highest viewed video at 11k views(https://youtu.be/_YgP6reo5KQ), and is the majority of content on my channel. Nothing I've done since has been as popular(but Avengers Academy is slowly creeping up there as people grow nostalgic for the dead game). This also probably led to me getting banned and getting someone else banned? More on that later.

It is a bit of a misnomer to say this is 'Marvel Puzzle Quest', two of the words are appropriate, but 'puzzle' is few and far between when talking about this game - we sparsely see the puzzle aspect of this game(Boss Events, Johnny's Fireside puzzles), and its more of 'use your most powerful characters to obliterate the enemy'. If you're lucky/determined/rich enough, you'll have a crew of characters who you'll be using as opposed to 95% of the cast. You're competiting in both PVE and PVP against others, so efficiency(or $$) is the name of the game. Sure, you CAN bust out your favorite character who may be less powerful than, say, a Kitty Pryde, but that could bite you in the ass or worse, suck up limited resources like health packs or boosts. So while the game is fun, this aspect of only using 5% of my roster reliably does dampen my enthusiasm for it a bit. There's also the fact which I sort of hinted that certain characters are ASTRONOMICALLY more powerful than others, even when they should be on even footing. In fact, D3's shoddy balancing has plagued the game since its inception: Even before I was playing 3*(* means star) spider-man was horribly unbalanced. While I was playing, there were a number of OP characters: Sentry, 4*Wolverine, 5*Gambit, Bishop, WorthyCap. And in combination with their strange balance, they take FOREVER to nerf characters who are OP. It took them so long to nerf bishop, they made a new 'bishop' in the form of Polaris, who I'd argue is MUCH more OP. Lastly, they've also made questionable balance decisions in nerfing characters like Old Man Logan, who as far as I can tell, only crime is being popular and having true healing. The funny part is, by time they address these things(well, most of them), the playerbase has adapted or the meta has moved on, making the changes moot - really only serving to piss people off.

Jeff Cork of Game Informer(and actually friend of C&R as well) once described mobile games as 'getting on a treadmill', and he's right. While I enjoyed my time with the game, it grew repetitive and my frustration with being beat by the, at the time, new 5* characters and not being able to access them myself without whaling or hoarding, I ended up quitting for 2 years. I streamed other games, mobile and not, but none of them really attracted audiences like MPQ. It was especially frustrating in that, yes, I like mobile games, but that was because I didn't have access to anything else in the budget - fighting games didn't have the same draw for my audience. So with that and me turning 26(which in america means I'm not longer on my dad's insurance, fun stuff), I had to exit streaming and take job searching more seriously. I was a successful streamer, but the amount of success you need far outstrips the effort and time it took.

As I said earlier, the C&R show actually brought me back to the game in a way, and to my surprise, my 2 year wait was actually a good move - they FINALLY implemented a way for the peasants to earn 5* characters without having to rely on luck. There's also progression by winning, which is a great option for PVP simulator(though still too grindy elsewhere). They also took away the majority of scaling from content(your enemies would scale with you, again reinforcing the fact you could only use a select number of characters). While D3's PR and credidentials as a developer may be questionable, it at least seems SOMEONE(or someones) in the company are able to keep it going in the right direction.

The community was a pretty big turn off as well, as a streamer of could I was trying to get my name out there, but I ended up running into the PVP mafia. PVP isn't just something you do in the game, there's a subculture of exclusivity, nastiness, and kissing up in order to do well in PVP. I didn't sign up for politics when playing a mobile game, so that was part of my lost enthusiam. Those that commented on youtube streams, videos, and twitch chats were pretty good, though.

Currently, I have a very boring job which MPQ helps me get through - I've also gotten my roster back to the point where I'm competitive, and the rewards are such that I don't need to put money into the game.

Overall, I want to say I've spent somewhere between $500-$1500 on this game,(I'm sure I can look at google play/apple receipts for an actual #) but I'd imagine playing for 5 years and for the heavy hour count I have, it isn't a crime against mankind(or my wallet, for that matter).

A couple odds and ends:

I was banned, or "sandboxed"(sandboxing means you can do everything but NOT join an alliance) in this game despite doing nothing wrong. I actually enjoyed it greatly, because it meant i wasn't getting attacked in PVP, so I could PVP peacefully. As I went over earlier, I don't know if the PVP mafia falsely reported me, or perhaps me streaming and revealing characters that weren't officially known yet, I can only speculate. But the thing is, we knew the next characters because people would hack the steam build, which meant the info was out there, you just had to know how to get it. I don't really think its my issue you can't run your game properly, punishing streamers for such things seems petty. But seeing how DMCA takedowns and demonetization is running wild maybe they were onto something... I was eventually unbanned, no explanation - but I imagine they saw my response in enjoying being 'pvp bulletproof', and reverted it. I mean, I guess a normal person would've been bummed they couldn't be in an alliance and possibly quit/regretted their actions, but that's not the response I had, lol. Apparently someone else got banned from me mentioned they were my source for datamining? Again, really dumb.



D3 told the community at large "you're supposed to lose" infamously when questioned about the difficulty of (Galactus?). For the uninitiated, this is a dumb thing to say because the only rewards were for winning. This wasn't the first of their PR gaffes and not the last. They took away SHIELD training, a mode that rewarded veterans for their consistancy, and gave a really weird apology stating 'they didn't realize players liked it'. Last time I checked, players like being rewarded! But then they went radio silent and gave us the sequel to SHIELD training, very soon afterwards and more. Which makes the whole situation puzzling - why not say SHIELD training is being retired and being upgraded instead of some....idiotic statement about not realizing players liked it? The world may never know. I guess for those of you who thought CDProjekt's response about Cyberpunk was 1 of a kind, think again.
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