Not really. I mean, some do, of course. But the greatest appeal to seasons is that the ECONOMY starts fresh. Sure, some people like the leaderboards race part, and seasonal rewards and/or achievements are nice, but the whole point of seasons is: “Ok, let’s pretend the game just released.” and play/balance accordingly.
Well you only need a fresh economy reset if the Eternal economy has become a mess right? EHG seem to be taking a LOT of steps to avoid that possibility.
Actually, I think the reverse is true: Legacy economy becomes mostly stable over time, with little fluctuation in prices. Season economy is what fluctuates the most, depending on the season content, meta builds for that time, etc.
Just look at PoE: prices in standard are mostly stable. They usually fluctuate a bit at each new league, because the balance changes and you get the previous league’s mechanic, so the meta shifts a little, but that’s usually only for a short period before becoming stable again.
Other than some “catastrophic” change, like when they switched exalts with divines, there aren’t many surprises in standard economy.
Whereas season economy tends to shift more: things are much cheaper the first few days, because no one has the currency yet for the real prices, then they usually scale fast until they stabilize for some time. Then they usually start shifting again as the top players either stop playing or start selling their stuff once they’re done with the season.
What feels kinda the same, though, is SSF. In PoE, the only point on playing league SSF is to play with the new season mechanic sooner (or sometimes, like with Ancestors now, the only chance you get to play it). Other than that, it’s mostly the challenge (or social phobias/issues, which are also a valid point).
If season mechanics are also placed in legacy at the same time, the only real difference between SSF cycle and SSF legacy is just the time constraint. Unless you add achievements/rewards to cycles.
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I just hope they do season stuff that can be implemented into the core game. Not useless season stuff like d4 that dissapeares after 3 months.
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If season mechanics are also placed in legacy at the same time, the only real difference between SSF cycle and SSF legacy is just the time constraint. Unless you add achievements/rewards to cycles.
I don’t think so they confirmed that Leaderboards will be on Legacy too. At this time just telling us “you have to start from scratch for Rankings”, zero words for Legacy. This way I guess race with others is so motivating for much people. Unless if Leaderboards will be on Legacy, I will consider to stay there, but it depends also for example how much players will be on Legacy and Cycle reset, cuz trade system. Minus for Cycle reset is over and over passing campaign on every character, for me it’s a bad. We will see.
I don’t care about the economy or the leaderboards. Starting a fresh character is 50% and new stuff added for the season is the other 50% of what I like about seasons.
Players have really very little insight into what other players like, and yet we constantly assume we ourselves are in the majority when it comes to preference. For me, once I had the humility to admit that to myself, I started posting what I like, and not what everyone/most like and I think(hope) that my posts became slightly more helpful to the devs.
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I refer you to my previous post as to what the devs have said they want to do:
My opinion is based in people I’ve interacted with for 20+ years of ARPGs. And from that experience I’ve concluded that most people like the fresh economy. I mean, you don’t need a new season to start a fresh character, you can do that at any time. LE will even have both account-found and character-found modes.
Achievements and rewards are also an incentive for some players, but even in games without them, many people like to play seasons, like in D2. And even in PoE, there are lots of players that don’t chase the rewards anyway.
Personally, the only reason I play seasons is because of new stuff. Otherwise I would probably stick to legacy/standard. I personally don’t care about a fresh economy, I don’t care about leaderboards, and if the only rewards are cosmetic, like in PoE, I don’t care really care about those either.
I think the question is is reversed in regard to the OP: if 1.0 will start with the exact same content in legacy and cycle, cycle play needs to be made relevant, otherwise they’re exactly the same thing. Whether it’s leaderboards, rewards, or something else, at least the first cycle needs something legacy doesn’t have.
Unless there is a sizable untapped market of players that only care about non seasonal play. There really is no incentive to divert resources there. I also like the POE model of testing new features out in a league and keeping/tweaking the ones that work well.
I think a small portion love profiting off a fresh economy, and the rest just enjoy playing where the ‘popular’ players are (usually the ones profiting off the fresh economy)…and has the newest toys (seasons). MMOs prove that an economy doesn’t have to be reset every 3 months to remain stable. A company just has to somewhat control the RMT and botting to keep it somewhat under control.
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I think this needs to be looked at on an individual basis.
Generally having cool cycle mechanics that later stay or get integrated into the core game can be good.
But on the flipside this should not always be the norm.
Otherwise the game will become convoluted and bloated. Especially when some of these mechanics forfill similar roles.
I also think there is room for some fun mechanics that deliberately do not stay in the game. But all in all it depends and I just think the design of a given cycle should never be centered around become part of the core game, because I think this severely hinders the creativity.
There is a lot of wonky/fun stuff the devs can do for a deliberate limited time frame, but that would hurt the game in the long run if it stayed.
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Like I said before: seasons do NOT have a stable economy. Never did. Stable economies come from legacy.
The point of a fresh economy is exactly that it’s NOT stable. Each new season things might change. Like in PoE: exalts usually peaked at about 180c, then came Harvest and they went all the way up to 240c. Then Harvest went away and exalts came down in price again, only to come up once more with Heist or Ritual.
Not to mention that a season economy floats much more within the season than legacy does.
So, to reiterate once again: players that want a fresh economy want one because it’s NOT stable. Also because, over time, legacy economy will be flooded with BiS items.
Ok, I misunderstood what you were getting at…
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It’s ok, sometimes it’s hard to convey one’s point of view clearly via text.
Also, many different players will want many different things. There can never really be a consensus that will please everyone. All opinions are valid, but ultimately this will fall on the devs and their view for what they want their game to be like.
This is not to say that this thread is irrelevant. On the contrary. EHG takes into account player feedback, so this discussion is a good thing, even if they end up “ignoring” most of it in terms of implementation.
Yes. I’m not a fan of the seasonal concept. I don’t like starting over, just to take part in new content. But if others want seasons, that’s fine as well… but give me the option to play the new content, without having to start from scratch each time.
Each new season should be (Existing External State) + (New Content) - (Character/Stash Data). Eternal should be (Existing External State) + (New Content) + (Existing Eternal Character/Stash Data) + (Last Seasons Character/Stash Data).
I mean, it’s not rocket surgery. But I don’t see why people should be punished for not wanting to start over, just to play the new content when it’s released.
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I agree. Even though, in that model, you need to give cycle players some reward. Leaderboards alone isn’t a reason to bring people to play cycles.
Both options should be viable, so players can choose what they want the most. But if the only difference between legacy and cycle is the fresh start, that’s not enough. Some season related MTX rewards like PoE offers could be good incentive, or the totems MTX (although those would need some sort of hideout). They don’t give any benefits in-game (even though some people will still complain that they should get them) but can be incentive enough to bring players into cycles.
Ultimately, if both modes get the same thing, cyles are like a punishment: you have to start fresh (whereas legacy characters are full level so they’ll start to enjoy things much faster) and have to wait for the economy to pick up. So the only reasons to play cycles are the challenge and possible rewards. Without rewards, your cycle playerbase will fall off.
I don’t think it’s required that seasonal content stay around, unmodified. But, at the same time, I think both the Seasonal realms, and Eternal realms should contain the same content, so both playstyles are playing the same game. If the Seasonal stuff stays around in the Eternal realm, that’s another story – and players playing there should understand that functionality, or items, might be removed if that content isn’t chosen to be rolled into the ‘master game’. Just like would happen to Seasonal characters after a Season ends, and they transfer to the Eternal realm(s).
Just because they stabilise at different points in different leagues depending on the league mechanic doesn’t mean they don’t become stable. I’m a bit confused why the economy resetting/restarting means it’s not stable?
This is Divines in Ancestor, it looks pretty stable to me:
As a contrast, this is Divines in Cruicible, it stabilised for a while then went nuts:
That’s my point exactly. I didn’t mean that every season you’ll have prices go up and down all the time. Even within a season prices will usually stabilize. But you never know how a season economy will react to the new content.
A good example of this is Harvest league. Exalts would stabilize at around 80-100c at the time but in Harvest they suddenly went up to 140c+.
In contrast, in standard the divine price is pretty much the same. It will shift a little when the previous league mechanic comes to standard, but it’s been at 250-300c for a long time now.
But that’s one of the main reasons Seasons/Cycles exist – because players were demanding a way to start fresh, with a fresh economy. If you have to provide additional incentive for people to play Seasons, then why have them at all? The Season/Cycle itself should be the lure, not some special MTX, that effectively punishes people who DONT want to start fresh. (I don’t know how many cool POE MTX I wanted, but didn’t want to have to grind out the seasonal achievements to get every time). Not to mention, anyone who can’t play in a season, for whatever reason, are screwed out of whatever special MTX were available – looking at you POE Abyssal Portal effect.
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