Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Games: The response to my original interview with Albert Reed on Marvel Puzzle Quest was great, and between that post and my random comments about the game on Twitter, I've gotten a lot of comments and questions. In response, I hit Albert up with your follow-up queries. His answers are immediately below. 

I also figured it might be useful to share a few tips for people who are just starting, or are considering taking the plunge. Scroll down past the questions for those.

BG: With the update that recently went up, what other changes besides the new daily rewards system and shield function went into effect? 

AR: About a bazillion bug fixes and tweaks to the UI - for example, we show how many Iso-8 and Hero Points you have in the map now. Most of our development effort is going into new characters and events! We'll be rolling out a new character in the next week!

[Note: that character is now up, and was revealed to be Ares.]

In regard to daily rewards, what happens when a player can't complete a mission or has no uncompleted missions left to do? Do they stop getting rewards? 

Honestly, we haven't even considered that! If you've run out of missions to play, we've done something horribly wrong. :-) There should always be a plethora of stuff to do - Versus, Events and re-playing prologue missions.

What do you have in the pipe for the seasoned players - people who have maxed-out characters and still want more to do?

We hope the steady stream of versus and single-player content we roll out each week can keep our players engaged for a long, long time. 

When can we expect the next story campaign? 

We're going to have an improved version of a previous event starting up very soon and right after that, we'll have our brand-new fourth episode going live.

[Note: the improved event that returned was “The Hunt”]

How did you select the characters for the game? Clearly the Avengers are hot right now, but what about others like Invisible Woman, Dr. Doom and so on... How did they make the cut? 

We listen to what players request, and suggestions from Marvel. 

Will there ever be the option to challenge friends, or somehow get friend visibility in-game?

It's on the short list, for sure! We are constantly handing our phones to each other to look at one-anothers' teams. There's got to be a better way!

Have there been characters in previous events who might have been missed by newcomers to the game? If so, who, and will they be available again later?

After a short period of time, the newly-released characters get worked into the standard cover packs and rewards for other events.

Will there ever be a way to get the super-rare characters (Invisible Woman, X-Force Wolverine) other than coming in first in a contest? (Because it's HARD.)

You can get them from the cover packs as well. Part of our super-long-term gameplay is leveling up those characters. 

Will there be any respec options for people who want to tweak their characters?

We have lots of highly requested changes, and this is one of them.

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Thanks again to the super-fabulous Albert Reed for taking the time to answer all these questions! Now, tips for beginners down below…

>The game is incredibly generous when giving out free stuff, as long as you know how to get it. By replaying the campaign missions and collecting all available awards, you can pick up plenty of Covers (for unlocking new characters and upgrading ones you already have) and ISO crystals for upgrading.  Additionally, by entering all of the weekly events, the rewards start rolling in after just a few victories. You don't need to take the top honors by any means -- even placing in the top 1000 or top 500 will get you a bonus, not to mention all of the rewards you collect from matches along the way.

>The beginning team of Hawkeye, Black Widow (Modern) and Iron Man 35 is very strong, so if the game is feeling tough, stick with the starters until you find your legs. Once you decide to get away from the starting team, try to pick characters who complement each other -- characters that represent a good spread of colors so that every match counts towards feeding a superpower. Choosing three characters who all rely on green and red means that making matches with yellow, blue, black, or purple are lost opportunities to get ahead.

>Another team tip - if you can, try to use characters who have healing, such as Black Widow (Original) or Spider-Man. If you can use their healing powers during battle (right before you win, ideally) you’ll cut down on the necessity for health packs and be able to play more matches before your characters get worn out. If you haven't gotten a healer yet, you can replay the Prologue missions "Tall, Dark and Nasty" or "Kidnapping" (in the Venom section) to make use of the loaner Spider-Man there.

>When beginning the game, don't spend any real money until you need to expand a roster because it’s important to hang onto new team members -- they may not be strong enough to use right away, but you're sure to accumulate Covers for them as you play. If you don’t have enough coins to unlock more team slots and keep them, roster expansion is the wisest investment for real dollars.



>It takes quite a bit of time and effort to complete the Prologue campaign mode. Don't try to plow through it before trying the other options. It's a better idea to go back and forth between the Prologue mode and the rotating Events. Doing so will rack up more rewards, you’ll level up faster, and you’ll be in a better position to clear missions in both sections.



>When in the tournament Events, use the Skip function liberally. It doesn't benefit you to go up against a team that's vastly overpowered and get stomped, so don't be afraid to skip people until you find someone who is an appropriate match. Pick and choose your opponents, and you’ll go a lot further in each session.

>When in a match, tap on your characters’ portraits and learn which colors hit the hardest for each of them. Along the same lines, know your enemy. Tap on enemy portraits to see what attacks they do and how much they hit for. Try to make matches that feed your own superpowers, or conversely, try to make matches that prevent your enemy from feeding their own powers.

>Choose your target. If you tap enemy characters in the middle or rear positions, you can rotate them to the front.  If Storm is in the back and she keeps doing tons of damage, rotate her to the front and take her out first. By removing the biggest threat first, ‘impossible’ missions become much more manageable.

>I never thought I’d ever say this, but connect your game to Facebook. You’ll be able to back up your save, and when you have other friends playing the game, you can also send rewards to each other as you play. Nothing wrong with getting random gifts of 500 ISO or a Cover token here and there.

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That’s it for now… Hopefully these tips swill get you on the right path, and smooth out any initial starting difficulty. Big thanks to @RowanKaiser and @TheShums for chipping in to this writeup! They're great guys!

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