I think we are about in agreement LE has not manage to nailed the °fun° in the game.
The one week half’-life retention rate should be a indication that a significant amount of players quit well before any meaningful end game interaction.
The fun progression of character is what is needed most. Crazy take. adding MORE stuff do not attract people to returned to a game, when people do not enjoy the gameplay progression.
I played the PoE2 season and it was fun as long as i had to toy arround with my Druid. Once I was done with it PoE2 was just PoE2 again. Oustanding in so little ways annoing in so many. Then a friend said “Let’s play D4!”. What should I sayß It’s just a fun smooth game for some brainafk happy hours.
Difference is I have 0 expectiations for D4 because Blizzard is clownfiesta. I had some expectations for PoE2 and they undelivered here and there making it more a meh experience. I had high expectations for LE and was there almost the whole ride and liked many things and I had high expectations. Then 0.8 hit and everything after and my expectations were crushed and then ground to dust.
maybe I’m so unhappy with LE right now because it was so awesome in the past and now I would rather play D4, Superfuse or Undecember instead of LE and I dislike the last two games a lot ^^.
Oh? Does it?
How’s the daily flooring count?
How’s the overall playtime invested?
I would argue D4 has more players playing short term.
Yes, that’s true, I agree.
But that’s where the moolah comes from. The lovely gravy flows… where the dosh exists.
It’s a universal psychological law that when you engage longer-term with something your barrier to paying something is respectively lower.
You mean the 6 total viable builds in their game you’re through with in a single league? Maybe 2? As a relatively casual player?
What reason do you have to come back? Anything ‘new’ there to make you enjoy the gameplay again?
Because it’s not clever?
It’s absolute garbage? Always was?
Semi persistence which screws over competition is a major blunder.
Altars of Lilith staying unlocked? Who thought that up? It’s the decision of someone utterly incompetent.
Yeah, and that’s fine!
Leaves a ton above to come back to.
As you state… they leave when they get bored (quitting from vanity fading, hence repetition setting in) rather then lack of goals.
That’s how you get people coming back, you provide a ton… and the more experienced you are the more you can accomplish in that timeframe.
Yes, and those need to be fixed first.
Coherent enjoyable gameplay throughout the bank is mandatory for a product to do well, agreed.
Actually no. It’s how you keep the people which are long-term engaged potentially… well… actually engaged.
Those people have a relatively loose bank account compare to the short-term players.
Yep, absolutely so. That’s very much agreeable here.
And that’s also a important point playing into it.
Buying a Blizzard game will get you a forgetable experience to use a bit of time. Not good at all… but acceptable indeed!
Much like a Bethesda game will provide you with a broken janky mess.
Or a Ubisoft open-world game will provide you with mediocre trash and loads of tedium.
If you know what you get into then it’s fine to not have the top end… you knew it after all!
EHG promised the world though and delivered a puddle.
I think Your bias against blizzard has affect your perspective.
At the end of the day, if a game is not fun, people will not play or return.
If you look at the subreddits for d4, poe2 and last epoch, you know Reddit, known for the most toxic entitled people . D4 sub is significantly more friendly than Poe 2 and LE.
You can go to wow and its Sunshine and Rainbow. I think it regained its throne over ff14 as mmo.
Not sure about overwatch 2 , last I checked it was hit hard by Chinese game marvel heroes .
The point is blizzard has a successful formula ( fun) that attract the masses and have people come back regularly to play.
They regularly give discount, give out free stuff, engage with players , takes to content creator have test realms for testing.
The player housing in wow is absolute hit. I barely play wow but it still amazing to look at other housings. They do not juts t add hosting, they made entire region of neighborhoods.
You would be surprised how many psychological factors play into people playing vastly beyond fun.
Competitive games especially are prone to that, actively causing people not suited for it to mentally deteriorate even.
But it’s still upholding for games without competition, sunken-cost fallacy for example does the job really well in ‘keeping you beyond fun’.
Yep, that I agree with! And it’s only underlining my position actually.
The more ingrained people are with using it long-term the more likely it is to become toxic. Extreme stances, rigid thinking… needs time to build.
If your similar game has a lack of extreme stances despite no significant moderation differences then it actually showcases your game’s not doing well in terms of player retention.
You can universally look around… Tarkov? Toxic. Dark&Darker? Toxic. Poe 1/2? Toxic.
Nigh every game which is based on either competition or has a distinct metric for success included is becoming toxic.
Why?
Because it’s human nature to have a pecking order. Social status matters for people and hence superiority is a big thing. Playing casually? You won’t reach the end… hence you’re not doing it ‘right’. The fun is put to the side, it’s goal-deriven, not fun-deriven suddenly.
You sure?
WoW has the low results again, showing a downward trend towards BfA times.
Starcraft 2 is basically dead.
Hearthstone is also only limping along.
Overwatch 2 is going decent… because they have literally no competition in the direct genre. Their biggest competitor is TF2 basically.
D4 is their second half-way decent producer.
Good enough.
I wouldn’t ever try to argue ‘Blizzard has a success formula’ though… because if that’s one then I fear for gaming overall.
Just sad that a ton of stuff has turned into shit instead.
Also player housing is always loved, nigh universally. Be it PoE 1 Hideouts, be it the Lost Ark island, be it Everquest 2 housing… wherever you watch ‘we offer player housing’ has been nigh universally well received.