Ideas for making MPQ better and more popular

There are two problems with Magatia Party Quest (aka Romeo & Juliet PQ). As long as these problems remain, the popularity of this PQ will forever remain low.


The first is the fact that the pendant at the end, similar to the Spiegelmann’s Necklace of CPQ, takes way too long to acquire for something that is made obsolete once you’re 2/3s of the way leveling through this PQ’s level limits. MPQ is for players 71-85 and if you are successful 25 times you will receive the Eye of Horus – which gives +3 all stats and +14 Avoid. If you do 30 more successful MPQs, you have the possibility of upgrading the Eye of Horus to also give +210 HP/MP. This all becomes obsolete at level 80 when a player can receive a Silver Deputy Star in NLC that gives +5 all stats with +100 HP/MP. Given that the Deputy Star can be purchased, it also doesn’t help that the level requirement for a Silver Deputy Star is level 50.


There are several ways in which this issue could be resolved. Any one or combination of the following could do it:

1. Make the number of successful MPQs much lower.
2. Make the Deputy Star have a higher level requirement.
3. Make the Deputy Star untradeable.
4. Increase the stats of the Eye of Horus.
5. Turn the Eye of Horus from a Pendant to an Eye Accessory.
6. Turn the Eye of Horus from a Pendant to a Face Accessory.

On a positive note, if the Eye of Horus is turned into an Eye Accessory, it would be seen as a replacement of the Broken Glasses from LPQ. On a negative note, the Eye of Horus would be competing with CWKPQs Spectrum Goggles.

On a positive note, if the Eye of Horus was a Face Accessory, it would be the only Face Accessory that isn’t achieved through Gachapon.

Personally, I’m a fan of option 6 most, then 5, then 1, then 3, then 4 (not so much a fan of 2). I am NOT advocating all of them – that would break the game.


I believe only the 6th option listed would truly fix the problem on its own. If, however, this isn’t kosher with the admins and the player base, the other option would be to lower the difficulty barriers that typically turn off players from MPQ. The following adjustments could be made to MPQ such that the difficulty is lowered enough that players can see the time investment to MPQ would be worth the effort.

1. Adjust the Lab maps on Stage 4: Special Lab such that a thief (or character that has max jump/speed) and Magician are not essential.
2. Lower the number of correct platforms in Stage 6: Lab Tunnel from 10 to 8.
3. Place platforms in between the gaps of the platforms in Stage 6: Lab Tunnel.

The first adjustment would remove a lot of the difficulty of finding essential players to make an MPQ run in the first place. One of the biggest detriments of PQs that demand a Thief and/or Mage has always been the dreaded “LF> 1 more to LPQ/MPQ [must be a mage/thief].” It is added insult to injury when you have 1 or more players who would like to join or make their own party. What’s worse about MPQ than LPQ in this matter is that MPQ parties are 4 only, and if two of them have to be Mage/Thief, that means the other two can only be two other classes – one class will always be left out. So the probability, should the popularity of MPQ ever increase, of getting a party right away is very high for thieves and mages (as they could just take thieves and mages) while other classes are absolutely dependent on having a party with both of those classes. [Again, it is understood that if a player has max speed/jump equips then the thief requirement is mitigated, but such specifications are not as common as we’d like it for players 71-85]. The adjustments that could be made may require a bit of recoding, but it effectively would work like this: The Mage portal should, instead of having to teleport through the bottom set of walls, a player could walk through the bottom walls until they reach a ladder at the very right end, ascend the ladder to the top where the player could walk through those walls at the top, then also have jump-down disabled on the map forcing the player to have to go down the ladder from whence the player came in order to get out. This would make the map difficult enough that a Mage would be super convenient to have, but not so necessary that it would prevent you from even going on an MPQ run, or, worse, having to abandon the PQ if your Mage got disconnected. The same is true for the Thief portal, if a series of ladders and ropes were installed such that getting to the boxes would require a lot more time and effort than doing the treadmill jump quest if you had a Thief (or max speed/jump equipped player), that level would also be negotiable my a hasteless party, but a thief would be greatly desired in order to speed the PQ up.

The second adjustment is just to remove an extra layer of tedium that is Stage 6. Yes, LPQ has its tedium puzzle stage and MPQ should be no different, but removing just 2 layers worth from this stage might be enough for players to overcome their revulsion of the entire PQ.

The third adjustment would prevent the pains of falling on a puzzle stage. The portal progression is similar to the “Where is Dogon’s HQ?” quest given by Chury in Omega Sector. If you accidentally fall to the level below you, trying to go through the portal you KNOW should send you to the next level up, instead the platform will send you back to the start because it was the wrong platform next in the sequences of platforms you triggered. Because one could fall and require that player to return to the start makes this Puzzle Stage also a Jump Quest – which isn’t particularly welcome given the jump quest part of the PQ was done in Stage 4. Again, this adjustment would solely be used for reducing the needless tedium (if you should fall) of the puzzle stage.

 

Funded players can always take the leeching route, for sure. I've never known, however, leeching to be quite as much fun as playing the game yourself.

I have run into many players who say that MPQ experience is trash, but getting the maximum of 440k exp per run requires patient players who know what they are supposed to do. Any one of these failures will cost your party the 300k experience bonus at the end:
1. Not remembering to get the letter in Stage 1 and give the letter to Romeo in stage 4 can be an oversight for parties who are new.
2. Failing to understand how to properly defend Romeo/Juliet during the Frankenroid stage.
3. Failing to communicate with Yulete properly in stages 4 & 7.

So while I agree with you that the experience issue is definitely a factor, I think it's also important to consider the bonus equips as well. If you can get an epic Face Accessory that you just simply cannot get anywhere else and is effectively an end-game equip for the Face Accessory slot, wouldn't that be enough to draw you in? [The issue of players who have already advanced beyond 85 never being able to achieve this equip also become an issue. One possible solution to this is that the equip could be tradeable only through Storage.]

Leeching will always be better, but it is a lot more expensive. [https://imgur.com/a/Mw1E2]. How do particular maps/mobs stack up in experience against MPQ's 440k+ exp per round? I couldn't find a table to answer that question.

Nevertheless, there are two types of players in this game. There are those who wish to rush to the end and there are those who wish to experience all aspects of the game and are not troubled by leveling slowly. I can totally get behind why many players who wish to level as quickly as possible would never see MPQ worth their time as it stands unless it could produce more experience bonuses; which is why the only way I could see MPQ ever becoming a popular PQ without it becoming broken in the amount of exp it gives is to alter the Eye of Horus to a Face Accessory (or something similar in design) that would lure all players to want to get such a novel equip.

As for players who are not in a rush and want to experience all aspects of the game (such as myself), if even we have trouble justifying going through MPQ...then there's a problem. The way that it's designed right now, I have no qualms having each one of my characters go through MPQ successfully ONCE and then never bothering to come back here (except to help a friend). The only reason I went through 35 LPQs for each of my 12 characters is because the Broken Glasses are a novel equip that will not be replaceable until CWKPQ. The Eye of Horus, as it stands, is simply NOT a competitive equip compared to a Silver Deputy Star - and the level requirements between the two in order to obtain one for yourself is less than 3 levels. [It would take 35 runs of MPQ, each run giving 440k+exp (so 450k to average it out) totaling 15M experience which would take a minimum level 71 to Level 78, and the Silver Deputy Star can be obtained through Lita Lawless at level 80]. This leaves only the players who wish to obtain every possible item in the game to want to grind through MPQ - and out of respect for those players (I am NOT one of them...I mean, I kinda am, but not to this extent) we should do something to make MPQ have a bit more of an incentive.

 

I'm currently looking to do another MPQ run with my CB.

 

I wouldn't want to skip a stage, but a couple stages could be a little easier. If the Homunculus on stage 3 had their drop rates for the liquids increased a bit, that would be nice. Having the puzzle stage reduced from 10 could also make a huge difference.

 

Bumping to see what happens...