How i think LE should be monetized

General
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“How I think LE should be monetized” – and initially, it’s all about GGG. Brilliant. I thought the post was in the wrong forum or had the wrong title.

Honestly, I’m not interested in GGG at all. Except that back in 2018, when Tencent bought 86% of the shares, they should have renamed themselves “Grinding Tencent Games.”

MTX are a thing. It might not be your thing, but let’s put it this way: tastes differ.

Let me quote EHG.

They could lose so many players that nobody would play anymore, and your fever dream of “screw the entire seasonal model” is highly unlikely, unless they go into debt somewhere and buy the game back if Krafton makes a buyback offer. The Krafton acquisition will probably also mean that quarterly targets will be set immediately or after a certain period, and those are impossible to achieve with a game model like Grim Dawn’s. They might not even be able to make such a drastic change without Krafton’s approval, or it could even be considered a breach of contract. And Krafton paid $96 million. They probably won’t be investing any more money in the near future.

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The classes or addons untill the store groweth and the graphics upgradeth for better quality skins.

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EGH doth not follow GGG. There is no convenience fee. Unless, of course, ye count the purchase of the game as such, although it is not enow, cos it’s happen only at once in Last Epoch, and GGG releaseth more new stash tabs. Another words, the prices are very different,

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lmao you’re one of the tencent haters. its thanks to tencent that ggg has so much funds to go bonkers with their content. but anyway not too relevant to this topic.

i agree actually, just LE mtx specifically arent selling well. i also agree, tastes differ. it differs so much that EHG literally could not support their game. EHG openly went and said they couldnt get it to work. i wonder why…

for sure. you can quote their original intent. but it didnt work. simple as that. theres a saying. something like keep trying something over and over again despite not working is insanity.

maybe you’re right. but then again, creating modern seasonal content costs a huge lot of money. i bring up POE a lot because LE did rely on POE’s seasonal model, where the major difference is LE has an initial cost. do i need to remind you that POE started with league content thats just a crappy lootbox that spawns random mobs? they had organic growth where their costs of making league content was low as the league content was actually quite simple in comparison to now.

look at LE’s current seasonal content. ITS HUGE. it takes a lot of company resources. it simply is not sustainable as they dont have enough playerbase. d-likes are a niche market. LE is a niche of a niche.

you mean to say people are not leaving already? based on steam charts the peak number of players keep dropping with the recent peak being what? 80k ? dropped to 20k within a month then 5k then 2k.

have you not seen reddit/these forums/youtube. many people are pissed for many different reasons.

yeap. thats likely.

do you think EHG can meet these targets with such a small playerbase that are already pissed off with EHG and saying stuff like theyre done with the game?

the only way LE can succeed is if krafton pumps a lot of money into the game and take a gamble.

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No, GGG has so much cash to go bonkers making content because they have had a lot of people throwing cash at them on a regular basis. If you look at GGG’s statutory accounts they’ve been cash-rich for a long time, well before Tencent bought the rest of the shares. I’m not surprised you don’t know this because normal people don’t peruse a company’s statutory accounts.

I wonder if PoE would be possible now, given the content expectations are leagues above where they used to be back in the day. I’m not sure if GGG started up now they’d get away with the scale of seasonal content that they had early on. Infact, I kniw they wouldn’t because people were saying this about LE, that they need to provide PoE-scale content out of the gate.

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i dont know if you know this but as a standard player, a lot of GGG’s actions became quite reckless after they tencent money injection. i will agree that GGG has money before the acquisition but it definitely gave them more breathing room and empowered them to do more radical changes. arch nemesis for example was one of the biggest changes that got a lot of backlash. also many actions that did not respect standard league players happened after the acquisition. i played the game actively back then and i actually felt this shift.

definitely not lol. thats why LE is suffering. it costs a lot to create modern seasonal content. ggg’s shitty seasonal content was accepted by the players because it was new and we had nothing else to compare it with. in fact we were celebrating all the piss poor league mechanics they pissed out. i say all that in a joking tone, because if we’re comparing them to what we have now, its really laughable. but i remember back in the day, everything ggg gave us, no matter how shitty compared to today was something we celebrated. also it gave us a reason to shit on d3 “look at all these new league mechanics, what does d3 have?”. the first league that converted me to actually go hard in a league was talisman. it had the basic template of modern seasonal content, with exclusive loot and a league exclusive boss that can be summoned/triggered. other past leagues were basically RNG.

d4 is not my cup of tea, and a lot of poe enjoyers dislike d4. but one thing we all cant deny is it appeals to a larger audience. how many players do they have? a huge lot. and their mtx sales are huge despite many people saying D4 Bad. if the mtx wasnt priced so high and if i was still invested in d4, theres so many mtxs that i would have bought in the game. the feeling of want is strong. their mtx sales and their player base is huge so they can actually afford to make seasonal content.

another game not to be forgotten is TLI. its p2w but many players can get far without spending a cent, which keeps them playing. some end up getting the “support the devs” mindset or some go goon and see a new hero/hero skin that could be their new obsession and pay money for em. tli too has a large playerbase. tho you cant exactly track the numbers accurately. steamcharts show a laughable 500 concurrent player number, but the big reason why this number cannot be trusted is the game can also be played on mobile using your steam account. they have actual paid classes and actual p2w mechanics but they have enough revenue to keep pushing new content. they have tons of cool looking mtx. with the revenue they have, they are able to constantly create new seasonal content and new heroes/skins/mtx. and the most important thing is, the stuff sold SELLS. back when i played tli, there are many things that i WANT. and i actually forked out cash for.

i guess TLI managed to do what they did is because the publisher is HUGE. they can afford to sustain losses for a few years and TLI is not their only game.

on a separate note. i think there could be some sort of seasonal fatigue in effect too. like for me, i prefer not to touch new seasonal content and prefer permanency. GD has a steady rate of roughly 1-2k active players, despite having more or less no seasonal content. i would argue GD has more actual long term enjoyers than LE. titan quest 2 is on the horizon too. speaking of titan quest 2, its pretty solid. the game is incomplete and theres no cosmetics but the visual style is in my personal opinion far more pleasing than LE.

i actually would be playing tq2, but right now i m hooked on WWM.

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If you play on mobile using steam, then it’s counted on steamcharts/steamdb.
It’s only accounts outside of steam that aren’t counted in those sites.

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true but, you can play TLI using facebook or google accounts. or even other various ways to login. and for those people they might not even use steam.

personally i started off playing the game using my mobile. but once i got invested, i ported over the account to steam so i use my steam account instead. that said, steam accounts are definitely not necessary to play tli

EDIT: out of curiosity i checked. TLI released in 2022 while LE released in 2019. TLI now just finished season 9 and is awaiting the release of s10.

the game originally started off with 5 heroes. inclusive of sub class, there now are 24 heroes. each of them look cool and their skins can be really desirable. then again it also caters to gooners so i guess thats a reason for success

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In 2019 LE was in EA, not released. They didn’t have seasons. They didn’t even have MP by the time TLI released.
You can only compare with LE since release, meaning early 2024.

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true, and regardless of everything i will still standby my words of praise when i say EHG did accomplish a huge lot with LE. sadly its doesnt have the support/revenue it needs to keep up its original vision.

XD kinda had a lot going for it. they copied POE2’s skill system, added a hero system and a separate class system (taken from TL3). got an existing IP. made a ton of waifu/husbandos, didnt neglect and in fact prioritized mobile market and on top of that they have a lot of china players enjoying the game. china people tend to be VERY loose with their wallets when it comes to games they like. p2w or cosmetic. its a normalized spending habit.

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I heared a lot of times PoE2 has to little endgame content and mapping alone isn’t doing the trick. Then again people look forward to new content because of GGG’s track record. Them beeing a no name studio with no funds making a new game or with the same approach as in PoE1? I think they could end up in a bad place. Then again having a giant but mostly meaningless skilltree hooks people up.

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Not really. Since I’ve never actually seen how a game has changed after being acquired by Tencent, I can’t really comment on that. It just sounded good and honest.
The questionable gameplay mechanics I experienced in PoE, or that you currently have to pay for a game that’s supposedly going to be free in the future, could have come directly from GTG.

I watched some videos of PoE 1 from 10 years ago and checked out the MTX. In my opinion, that stuff was ugly. I’m surprised anyone bought it at all. But PoE had time to evolve. With LE, many expected a certain design and top-notch quality from the start. If PoE were released today in its original form, I think it would be torn to shreds.

The player base and their sometimes unrealistic expectations are probably also a problem when it comes to their failure to finance themselves through microtransactions. You simply can’t expect the same level of quality from an indie studio in the same timeframe as from a multi-billion dollar corporation with a studio that’s been around for 10+ years.

Their view on paid expansions was addressed and confirmed again, I believe in a post yesterday. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Last season wasn’t particularly huge. If you ignore the story, it basically consists of killing a dinosaur, running through the new map, defeating the final boss, selecting the next currency, and repeating the whole process. Compared to the Weaver season, the current one is really quite “small”… I don’t know how else to put it. Anyway, it was perfectly fine, as they were also working on the story in parallel. So it was a small season plus the story.
Since version 1.0, if I haven’t miscounted, I’ve counted three seasons and one event. That’s not too much considering it’s been a year and ten months since release.
However, there are constant bug fixes and occasional graphics updates, though I’d perhaps neglect the latter a bit at the moment, as the game looks good. Yes, yes, I know, “the MTX…” So, neglecting the in-game graphics for a certain period (1-2 seasons, for example) and instead improving the graphics of the microtransactions and adding new ones. It would be worth a try, I think.

I’m generally very rarely on Reddit. Regarding LE, I mainly stick to this forum, and there’s only one YouTuber who, while expressing his concerns, says he’ll take a look at it first and then condemn it if necessary.
The mob that sometimes forms is pure madness. No wonder the EHG employees are hardly active on the forum anymore.

I will answer this question with a counter-question: Do you believe that Krafton did not have an overview of EHG’s finances and player numbers before they even considered the purchase?
I’m no financial expert, but I think they were given a deadline. Either profit must be generated by then, or the game must be improved to such an extent that Krafton can then promote it (as cost-effectively as possible, perhaps via YouTube and social media) and from then on generate player numbers and profit. Or, because 96 million usd is peanuts to Krafton, they simply don’t give a damn.

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Where there basically is nothing you can hardly sell anything :stuck_out_tongue:

Yep, but it’s also the only reliant method which has been proven to provide a somewhat steady playerbase sadly. So it’s a sort of mandatory thing for live-service games which function only with a steady playerbase.

Yeah, but that’s because they were in a position to be bailed out as Tencent wants them to stay open, which is one of their fundamental aspects. Hands-off until shit hits the fan… then they insert themselves until a crisis is averted. Allowed GGG to be more prone to risks.

So yeah, you’re kinda right with your argument.

The first argument makes it worse for EHG.
And the second is a big ‘no’.

As soon as it’s accessible by players we can compare progress of development.

Absolutely true!

But they’re also in the same area and directly compete… so kinda their own fault.

If they were a car company they would’ve stated ‘we wanna be better then Ferrari!’ and then went along to make a Honda Civic instead… lofty dreams and nothing else hence.

Gotta know what you go into before going into it.

At their pace mostly 4-5 Cycles long likely… but yeah, not only worth a try… it’s the thing they need to focus on instead of adding in-game graphic upgrades.

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You can only compare quantity/quality/speed of seasons when both games have a seasonal model.
LE only switched to seasonal in 2024 with 1.0, so comparing TLI seasons between 2022 and 2024 with LE is nonsensical at best.

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I can absolutely compare speed of progress overall depending on employee size. In terms of visible changes and also in terms of long-term mechanics which won’t show the results directly but lay the foundation for future changes.

There’s companies which work at a snail’s pace and there there are those able to churn out quality content in no time over and over again with basically no costs.

I mean… it’s the same in every single sector, you got a few companies which do good stuff, a lot of mediocre ones and a lot of bad ones.
EHG is mediocre. Not bad… but absolutely not even remotely ‘good’.

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It’s like pitting an amateur boxer against a seasoned pro and saying, “You brought this on yourself.” That’s just nope.

They didn’t want constant comparisons to PoE. They simply said they wanted the difficulty level to be somewhere between Diablo and PoE. That was all.
Of course, this product represents competition. But it also represents choice. However, I’m beginning to think that gamers don’t actually want choices.

That’s about as sensible as asking, “Dude, why didn’t you look into the future?”

True!!

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Nono… you got it the other way around.

What they did is saying ‘we wanna fight against a pro boxer!’ while they’re amateurs… so yeah, they brought it onto themselves :stuck_out_tongue:

Nobody made them go into the ring, they chose that battle on their own.

Didn’t they? ‘We wanna be the big name in the ARPG genre’ is basically their lofty dream. Who else to compare it to instead of the giants of the genre?

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Not realy. Compare Hero Siege seasons to PoE2 season. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Without the needed backround and expertice you can make edjucated guesses on you former experiences BUT without any insights I would guess it’s far easier to add stuff to a run down 2D game instead to 2.5D or 3D games for example. Not to speak about the possible issues different engines have and so on and so forth.

So what looks and feels like complete ass could be a masterpiece looking at it from a developer point of view. Then again I don’t give a rats ass if the content is crap as someone who payed for it or even when it is F2P. Then I’ll just complain if I’m invested in the game or I don’t give a fuck and move on.

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Obviously you need to take the game-type into consideration, that’s a given.

And for a product we never need to look at the dev-side of things… we need to look always at the customer side… because that’s what products are made for.
Doesn’t matter if you made the most intricate masterpiece of coding if the end-result is something nobody wanna use :stuck_out_tongue: Good tech-demo but not a good product.

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Then LE is completely fine and we as a loud minorty need to shut up because hundrets of thousands of players quitly play the game and have no issues? Nah I don’t think so.