Expansion opinions

General
21

Very split on this one.

I like the expansion model more than the season model. I also don’t mind cosmetics. The double dipping does feel greedy though.

I’m fine with the expansion being paid (but for the love of every arpg god out there don’t make it cost another full box price) if the expansion itself is worth it AND the base game gets a huge content drop that is free at the same time.

For me personally it would mean:
The campaign needs to be finished.
Dungeons need to be overhauled so they can be seen as a second game mode next to monos and not just Julra for slamming.

I would also like to have one more end game activity that is worthwhile in the base game besides monos (and the theoretically overhauled dungeons). So we have 3 good things to do in the endgame. And “good” in this context means that they give comparable rewards to high corruption monos and are “fun”.

And for the expansion itself… well just look at Grim Dawn. They made absolutely awesome expansions. Crate Entertainment is the role model in this regard. For me to buy an expansion it would (roughly) need:

  • A whole new story with new areas and maps to explore. Around at least 8-10h of content I’d say including a sweet story boss. Maybe a secret side quest with optional boss.
  • At least one new endgame dungeon (that works like the theoretically overhauled dungeons in the base game).
  • A shit ton of new items and uniques. Seriously. I think LE is lacking quite a few items. Like 200+ new uniques/set items would be a start (including leveling and endgame stuff).
  • At least one new endgame mechanic. Ideally 2 or more since seasons currently provide “only” one endgame addition.
  • New endgame bosses. Ideally 5-10.
  • At least one new super boss.
  • At least a new mastery. Ideally one more mastery for each class or one new class with 3 masteries.

If all of this is in there and the base game is something that can be called “finished” then I’m fine with paying like 20 - 25 for the expansion.

Personally I don’t have as much issues with the factions. Yes they can be better. They should be better, but I’m a CoF player anyway and it works for me just fine. I’m having fun with it. I won’t argue against improvements for MG however. It needs it. But for me personally it’s not a make or break point concerning the expansion.

I want my content. If EHG/Krafton can deliver a GD level expansion they get my money. Otherwise I’m just gonna play Fangs of Asterkarn even more.

On a side note:
I have talked with my less invested and interested friends about the expansion. Some of them played every season so far, some only 1 or 2. If it is paid they are out. Just flat out. They see it just as many others in this thread and think this is a very greedy move.
The most invested one of my friends directly linked it to the Krafton aquisition. Just bad PR.
I really hope the devs can “wow” us. All in all I still like LE. I hope it stays that way.

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22

Add a complete balance pass for all classes and the content to it, then we can start talking :stuck_out_tongue:
As well as fixing up the long overdue MG issues and the since years ongoing UI problems.

Plus at least another full-scale end-game mechanic at the scale of Monoliths to bring 66% of the promised content into it.

If that basic level is not reached then it’s a clear-cut ‘no’ as I’m not prone to being scammed out of what I paid for when I made the deal with the company.

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23

Don’t get me wrong, yes the game needs it. I don’t play MG (just once after the reset… what was that? 1.0? 1.1? Don’t remember) so I can’t speak to it. I dislike trade heavily anyway so I’m not the person to discuss it with in this context.

I’m just saying that for me personally the balance issues are not a deal breaker for me. They are massive, it needs to be fixed, no question. They just don’t prevent me from having with the game till now. That’s all.

From your comments in the other threads (I haven’t read all of them but a few… You are posting a lot :stuck_out_tongue: ), I’m also comming from a different perspective than you. I bought into EA with the expectation that the game will probably crash and burn. Like most EAs.

I liked what I saw at that point, had my fun with it and even if the game dies a horrible greedy death now with Krafton and all the hirings within EHG I’m satisfied. I got what I paid for and a little bit more. So there won’t be any “scam” or contract breach accusation comming from me. I will be sad if EHG does not manage and I probably won’t buy any future titles from them because they burned my goodwill, but I had my fun with LE. And that is pretty all that matters to me personally. Though I of course understand your perspective as well. I’m not arguing against it. It just does not apply to me.

Here I’m with you. As I wrote in my post I’d like to have 3 activities that are equal to each other.
It can be the story (GD style adjusted to LE mechanics), it should be (in my opinion) dungeons (those are just boss fights at the moment thanks to portal charms. The dungeons themself don’t really exist anymore. And thanks to the dungeon mob weaver tree node you also don’t need to farm the bosses for their uniques anymore) and of course monos (with more variety that comes with time).

If they don’t want to scale dungeons up and keep them around as they currently are I don’t see how they can add enough content to the game to not disgruntle many players with a paid expansion.

Oh and there is arena. Well this could count as it’s own system but I don’t like it (not saying others don’t) and the rewards were… well shit. For an arena mode it’s very boring and uninspired as well.
But yeah they could also overhaul this and make it comparable to monos. Then we would have monos, a reworked arena and reworked dungeons. And maybe some kind of mechanic to enable endgame scaling for the campaign.
I’d be fine with that (content wise) even if none of these would be strictly “new”.

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24

I have barely been on the forums since EHG was fully bought out by a conglomerate, and now I see that they’re doing the paid expansion model (after previously saying that there won’t be such a model) and being dishonest and opaque about the pricing?

I guess it’s better than full-on P2W microtransactions, but really? If it’s paid, say it outright. Actually being transparent towards the community would ease people’s thoughts on the already controversial buyout, meanwhile this just pours more gas on the fire.

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25

Pretty much. Being silent on a matter tends to allow people to assume the worst case scenario.

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26

Yeah PR wise it has been a disaster. Dunno what they thought would happen.

27

“Let’s share our opinions about something we have zero information about”

28

But… we have information about it!

We know they changed their terminology to what they usually use.
We know they situations happening beforehand and the things accompanying those decisions from the company potentially.

So, the opinions are based upon the most likely imagined outcomes derived from the information we have.
Will we be positively surprised? Maybe! Then that’s fine!
Could the worries uphold? Likely! That’s why it’s such a well spoken about topic after all. If it would be unrealistic in our minds then people would also immediately bash the notion down. But it isn’t, hence here we are.
Could it even be worse then imagined? Absolutely! Which is handled by former experience towards the game and information provided to us through all channels available… directly by the devs or as far as economical decisions which companies which own EHG tend to specialice in as actionable resolutions.

That stuff isn’t coming form ‘nowhere’, people are not imagining fantastical worlds with different laws of physics here… people talk about outcomes which are chance-based and have a high percentile to become a reality.
If EHG doesn’t want people to talk like this then their options are also really clear.
-Providing better quality content beforehand to make the likelyhood of the thought process lower.
-Be more reactive towards community sentiment, especially in terms of communication.
-Being more ‘stubborn’ in upholding their design principles and design goals.

It’s simply based on ‘what do they say the wanna provide’, ‘what are we provided’ and ‘how do they act’ said in simplified terms.

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29

It will be logical to assume that it will be paid only for PS players.

30

It’s rather not the silence, but the situation with Crafton…

31

It’s not that logical, actually. The most logical is being paid for both or being free for both.
For one, being paid on one and not the other will generate player discontent due to being treated different.
For another, why would someone pay for a game+expansion on console when they could buy the game and get the expansion for free on PC?

They want to expand to consoles because it’s a very profitable market. Starting by alienating your consumers wouldn’t be a good business option.
Pissing off the older PC consumers is a better business option because they already paid for the base game anyway.

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32

That would be buying the shovel for digging your own grave as well as ordering a hitman to do the deed after you’re done.

They gotta do it for both or the outrage will be so massive that it’s their own PR suicide basically.

It’s the combination.
It wouldn’t be an issue if the Krafton buyout wouldn’t be here in the first place.
And it also wouldn’t be an issue despite the Krafton buyout if EHG just would’ve cleared up the core question being asked after an hour, ensuring what exactly the situation is.

Alas… the situation exists and they didn’t clear it up, so… :stuck_out_tongue:

To be fair that only works if they don’t intent to get their MTX shop in order properly and also think that the console market would sustain them.

Which both would be really dumb moves, but by now I wouldn’t be surprised with anything anymore :stuck_out_tongue:

33

The only option that doesn’t piss anyone would be a free expansion, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen.

34

I mean… I already know exactly what I’ll do when there’s a paid expansion. Which is a step further then many other people will do.

And yes, rightfully it’ll piss off people if they do it.

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35

Out of curiosity, for all the not-going-to-buy-a-paid-expansion people, is there a price point where you would buy it? For example, if someone were going to spend $30-$60 a season on a supporter pack but wouldn’t pay $10 for an expansion feels odd. Or what if it was included in that season’s $60 supporter pack?

Just curious as to the range of what’s possible (or not).

36

I may purchase it at a later date, but I don’t want to waste money on something that may end up being turned into a pay to win micro transaction hellscape.

So I want to wait and see how things progress with Krafton at the helm, and to be honest it’s already starting to look a bit ropey.

37

For me it’s a principle thing, so a ‘no’ generally.

I’m fine doing supporter packs, that’s no issue when the Cycle is good. Which means the Cycle mechanic itself is ok-ish and the base game is in a nice state.

The difference there is that it’s on my terms and not on the terms of the developer in that case. I’m willing to spend the money since they showed me they deserve it.
I’m not willing to pay for it when they devs say ‘yeah, if you want to get the option to play with your friends further on together then you better pay up!’. That’s not on my terms, that’s on their terms.

I bought into LE because of the ‘all future content included’ aspect, hence if that’s changed the contract I initially made isn’t upheld.

I got a exception though where I break with my principle. And that is when the expansion is such a banger and so cheap in combination that it’s vastly beyond exceptation. But they gotta do magnitudes better then any other company releasing any DLC/expansion at the same price range.

38

The players of PC already boght the game, i’m meaning the access to it. Why they musten to do it again?

39

No, to me its about how you sell your product personally.

I am not even opposed to p2w as a principal, but I really dont like shifts in payment practices after the fact.

You either are a live service game that sells mtx/supporter packs what have you, or you are an expansion dlc game.

Grimdawn sells expansions, people enjoy that game, it does not have seasons. it is not a live service game.

TL:I sells p2w and battle passes as well as mtx, its very much in the f2p live service column.

Last epoch has a box price which I sorta kinda got, it was a way to reduce botters, and it allowed them collect funds upfront. And until now has been mtx/support pack focused.

I wouldnt have batted an eye at them going f2p, and selling a battlepass with cosmetics, or hell even selling a battlepass with cosmetics in addition to the box price.

But paid expansions are just not it. Having sections of the game where you walk try and enter and a big red X pops up “sorry you dont have X dlc, please purchase it” is ugly, immersion breaking, and just not something I want to see in a live service game.

To me they seem to be having a funding issue, they needed to sell some % to tencent for money, they needed to sell to Krafton, and now they potentially need to sell expansions to make ends meet?

Sounds like there is some massive finacial issues, and it very well to me means the writing is on the wall, they will likely drop a paid expansion, it will not do well, and this will cause shareholders to go to even more drastic measures which will alienate playerbase further until poof its gone.

So nah, there really isnt a price point id want to pay, like yeah if its 5-10 dollars you might be able to get me to spend, but I will call them out all the same. its unfortunate that I like the game so much and as a dumb consumer I might be tricked into giving them a little bit more then I should.

40

Imagine you create a game and plan to give out all future content while financing the live-service and continued development by selling supporter packs and MTX.

But, as it is often the case, reality catches up. The revenue isn’t enough, the costs are higher, or you simply mismanaged your finances.

Now you have two or three options:

  • go bankrupt and stop development & live-service
  • find an investor / creditor
  • change monetization plans

Pop-ups are something I don’t want to see, neither.
Personally, I prefer paid expansions every one or two years over subscription, p2w, or MTX any day, though. Especially if a single item of cosmetics comes with a multi-$ price-tag.

I only see blue and red flashes on the screen, anyway. There’s too much going on to appreciate the visuals of my character.

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