There is also something else to consider, which I’ve mentioned before:
Even if the current LE model isn’t as profitable, it might still be profitable enough that EHG decides to keep it and keep players happy.
What makes more money doesn’t have to be the single aspect of this decision. And, in fact, EHG have previously made decisions that benefit the players and not the income, like the decision to delay MTX production in order to focus on the game.
After all, the most profitable model is likely the gacha mobile games ones, but that doesn’t mean it would be good for the game. Especially for the game EHG wants to make.
So even if the data shows that this model is less profitable, as long as it’s profitable enough they might stick with it.
Exactly. Its why i think EHG should lean into this hybrid seasonal model they have been doing so far.
Just like with trading. They gave away for players to not have to trade or be forced into it like poe seasons should follow the same philosophy. Let players play in the game mode they want instead of forcing player into seasonal mode to experience content that may or may not go core. Which in turn forces these player into a game mode they dont want to play in or would rather not play in
This is one of the big things about permanent realms in these games. I dont think many fans of this genre realize this is a big part as to why these realms have such a small community in them. These realms would imo be more active if players didnt feel the need to play in seasonal mode to not have there experience with power affected.
I agree with u. As a seasoned player. I want to see EHG stand out be different than whats the norm in this genre of seasonal based arpgs. Even on poe forms players of this genre have been begging for seasons like this. Available to all or
And this is what most players of this genre are sick and tired of and dont want this anymore.
Making the most money is not what game development should be about period… thats why blizzard went to shit they care more a out the money not the players
i misunderstood you then, and my bad for that. tho, you seem to be so hellbent on advocating on something you dont prefer.
but in any case, i m not going to continue talking about sales/revenue etc where theres no actual meaningful data involved. if i wanted to do that i’d go into a believer/nonbeliever thread.
i see you keep insisting “more profitable”. compared to what? you have zero data and just pull out these assumptions from thin air.
to me its similar to aspirational/hard content. the more it feels non optional the stronger the FOMO, and i m done with FOMO.
EDIT: wanted to add. on a separate note. i was just randomly listening to rhykker’s stream today and i realized something.
D4 is primarily a seasonal game now where perpetual players can go eat shit. but even in that game many players are asking for some permanency. they dont want to unlock reputations, waystones, lilith altars every single league.
when so many of them are asking for that. it really makes one wonder. do they actually enjoy seasonal resets? lol.
U hit it spot on here. When it comes to this or even grouping up i always ask this.
Do u even want to group up or even start fresh. If one needs an incentive to do either one. Does one really truly want to group up or even start fresh. Imo no they dont. They are only grouping up because of the benefits they get like more xp more loot ect. Same thing with fresh starts. If one needs content locked to seasonal mode do u really honestly even want to start fresh. Most likely not.
Grouping up or starting fresh should be because u purely want to not cuz ur getting something out of it
if i m being real, all the season enjoyers that insist on seasons being reset only are kinda toxic. they want the game to be worst for other players.
they even have this weird mentality of “if legacy players have access to their end game gear/characters they will blast thru all content and get bored”.
my counter point is, then its the game devs responsibility to make the seasonal content fun enough that people would stick around. i played a lot of LE this season before stopping and i did it with my legacy characters/gears. i had plenty of fun and enjoyed the experience (mostly). i stuck around and i BOUGHT a supporter pack.
its weird how people are so obsessed with forced seasonal resets that they talk in a way as tho the game devs cant seem to make seasonal content good enough that players would want to play them by that merit.
That depends how far you are, right?
Casual player before Aberroth enjoyed Weaver Update. I was one.
When you had ‘weak’ classes, you were able to improve them so much easier with weaver
Edit:
I would have never tried Aberroth with some classes before Weaver Tree. Now I can improve those weak and fun builds to a reasonable point
And yes, A corr 600+ Player is probably too far and get bored.
A fresh start can have advantages^^
(Not that you can’t do it without season, but it is more foolproof xD)
For my friend and me updates improved Monolith:
Normal ones had story as goals.
Upgraded ones got Harbinger as goals and Abby as endgoal.
Weaver made the Journey different with more options (Which Main story lacks!)
But Main story got lost to updates (which is the point of this thread)
And the seasonal content will probably not always be self-craftable like weaver. So season might change what we currently enjoy in upgraded monolith - we will see
Another point is how ‘loot goblins’ in D3 season were enjoyable, meanwhile ‘loot lizard’ in LE gives too much loot in Main Story. That might be connected with how D3 had this power grind every season with people getting stronger and LE Main story does not have difficulty options. And people don’t seem to want endless increase in difficulty like D3.
LE gets more and more added with seasons and we already have uber Aberroth. Are we copying D3 difficulty somewhat?
Will enjoyable Monolith with Weaver still exist after one or two more seasons?
Edit: Just remembered how D3 did season:
They had overpowered season-only content.
Imagine Arena Champions with 3 times as many Champion Items. More general effects for every class and more powerfull. (That’s on a random rare item anyway)…
Once, D3 season had special Gems and removed them afterwards.
Season meant overpowering your char in another way each time, but less need for balance update due to removing the power.
LE kept seasonal content in main story. Thank you for letting us keep some fun ones, but the main story is broken now
And even with season-only content, D3 had soo much power grind
i always go back to the point where if the game devs made seasonal content fun/interesting enough, people will continue playing regardless.
i have shared my experience of HATING seasonal content. but in some rare cases i actually stick around even after i achieve my seasonal goals.
why? because the content is good!
ironically a lot of people who go hard on seasons play seasons for a shorter duration. they achieve everything they want then lose interest within the first month or two.
in my case, IF i enjoyed the seasonal content, i would actually continue playing till the very end.
now imagine if i were playing that seasonal content using my permanent character/gears. i would have zero resentment. zero hassle. zero waste of time. i would be enjoying the league till the very end.
unadulterated fun. all the way from beginning to end. i would have contributed to the “numbers” and player retention.
i’ve played seasonal content on for years. i am very aware of how weaker characters can get stronger due to seasonal content. but the question then becomes, “if you know you’re weak, wouldnt it be more fun if you started off stronger?”.
it definitely is. seasonal content usually needs to have a draw. in the loot goblins case, it the draw was hunting loot goblins that appeared in abundance was fun.
then my question would be. wouldnt it be more fun to be able to hunt these characters on you geared out character? you would be able to hunt them at higher difficulty levels and have a better chance of dropping even better items.
to be honest i m not happy with the existence of uber aberroth. he drops very powerful gear, and that creates FOMO. it encourages players to not try out their own builds but instead funnels players to just follow a build guide. why bother spending tens or hundreds of hours on your own build to try uber abby only to realize your build is not enough. using a buildguide saves all your time, effort and tears.
this is blizzard’s way of implementing seasons. they gave up finding new and interesting content for seasons.
for diablo 4, players/streamers joke about how all they get in seasons are powers. every season a new and different power. power power power.
in case you didnt know. blizz actually nerfed d4 players. before season 1. all so they can add in seasonal powers.
if you played in a season, you would gain seasonal powers that kinda makes up for the player nerfs.
but if you didnt play seasons. you were just weaker. even with the best gear in the game, a seasonal character with decent gear can be more powerful than you due to their seasonal power.
This is not FOMO, FOMO is time-based, always. What is described there is just awful design in general.
Why so? Because the boss provides extremely powerful rewards but is nigh impossible to beat with several builds and extremely unlikely to be beaten with the majority of builds. There’s only a few distinct builds which can handle this boss at all.
And that’s just shit, because yes, it funnels people into using build guides. But not because of the boss itself but the design around him.
If balance is properly there to at least a reasonable amount (something LE is so far away we don’t even see it on the horizon) then this wouldn’t be a problem. Minion build? No issue! Bow build? No issue! Caster? No issue! Totem build? No issue! If that would be a thing you wouldn’t need to choose as the end-goal is always Uberroth viability… but alas… it isn’t.
Less than 10% of all builds can beat Uberroth … is what i heard.
It reminds me of how high level gear is so strong, it takes most other options for gear away and limits the options for builds.
I like to have ‘options’. So I will probably keep ignoring everything above corruption 300.
The majority of player won’t go that far.
Doesn’t mean, Uberroth shouldn’t be enjoyed
How about … making Aberroth drop an Idol with immunity for minions against uberroth. Or Companion immunity. Maybe 1x1 or 4x4. Sounds fun?^^
Immunity would be too broken, imo. After all, you already have minion/companion builds that can kill Uby without it (though most use snapshotting which should be removed soon(ish), but not all).
Really every build can rather easily get above 300c. I don’t know many builds which can’t beat Aberroth either with a bit of investment. 500c is doable for all more or less.
As for the 10% builds able to beat Uberroth? Less… it’s actually less.
look at it this way. i can either try making my own build work, you know actually PLAYING the game, exploring the intricacies of the game. farming up resources and gear that i think that could make my build work.
but once i reach uber abby. i realize my build is bad against him for whatever reason. i spend more time and effort fixing my build. still fail. i’ve spent a lot of time trying to no avail.
then a friend of mine just follows some build guide. farms what he needs, uses much lesser time than me and wreck uber abby.
this is especially more pronounced in a trade league. the worse your character the further you will be left behind as players with better builds would clear faster and earn more than you. stuff you might want to buy might get bought up by those that use better builds. when many people use better builds they can afford to buy the item you want, and the item will increase price. it an exponential effect where the further you are from being efficient, the gap will just keep increasing.
so to me i still say its FOMO. simply put. FOMO stands for fear of missing out. take that literally. if i dont use a build guide, i fear i might miss out on the opportunity to kill uber abby. see how that sentence makes perfect sense to us? i didnt mention anything related to time at all. regardless, i m not going to argue with you on the term FOMO. i ll agree to disagree if required. all i can say is i experience FOMO because uber abby exists and i feel forced to use follow a build to kill him.
a while back the streamer rax made a vid on d4. in it he proposed blizz make a balance pass. make every skill/build not able to pass 1 million dps. i think thats a great way to start with balance.
find out WHY builds are doing tons of damage, then NERF the shit out of them so that they’re more in line with other skills. make it so that good builds are not too far away from decent builds. unfortunately from observation ALL d-likes in the market that are still active today are PUSSIES. they dont really dare to do that because a large majority of players are hardwired to enjoy zoomy screen blasting builds.
i highly resent ehg for creating uber abby. thats…reckless. the fact some of the best gear are gated behind uber abby… thats directly introducing a level of fomo.
as josh strife hayes/asmongold mentioned. the more you punish players, the more players will try their best to avoid punishment. hence, might as well just use a build guide. fuck the intricate 100 passive skill trees in the game. fuck all the 100 uniques/set/crafted gear combinations. fuck all of that. we shouldnt waste our time learning and experiencing the game normally. its stupid to do so. coz its very likely you wont be able to kill uber abby if you choose to do so. fuck making your own build. no disrespect to u kulze. u triggered some anger i have towards the state of modern d-likes.
i m really sick and tired that i feel punished for actually playing the game organically without any guides. in ehg’s case i m more salty because LE actually didnt require players to follow a build guide as most of the content was reasonably doable until uber abby. for sure getting to corruption 300 to kill the harbingers is a climb for newer players but i feel its doable.
uber abby? pfft. when the devs revealed the clear data. i just felt sad.
LE is turning into another POE.
i m honestly not too hyped for the next season. but i will keep myself updated. if EHG just leaves things the way they are. then i ll recognize that this game isnt for me.
admittedly, i will give ehg a few seasons more to see. to me ehg is the chosen one. the only d-like which i click with the most. i hope it doesnt turn into anakin for me.
The majority of player don’t go above 300c, because of the time investment.
My reasoning is different with the immense amount of stupidly fun builds possible below 300c^^ Still, most player do not reach Uberroth and not because of difficulty^^’
But that might be different for current active player … Haven’t seen any statistic in a long time, so maybe most active player do play above c300
I wonder how that statistic looks like
Devs can balance it with a limited amount of targets, or even more dmg reduction when you have more companions up to a limited amount
(In case maybe Necro Skeleton Army needs support?)
I don’t know the classes/cases in which support is needet
Or give minions with uber-imunity a debuff ^^
Or something more theme-like. Like each idol piece is a piece of the armor (Of Abby) and will count towards one minion
(imagine using flesh of Aberroth as an idol … uhh)
(Imagine you drop that on abby and then you are like “uhhh, now I wanna try that Uber” … It is the FEELING that’s important to my enjoyment )
There are a lot of more ‘fun’ options than just a fix. But that’s just me
Not this sorta time-based.
FOMO is related directly the aspect of ‘missing out’. For ‘missing out’ it needs to have one of two possible outcomes:
It phases out from existence, hence a timed thing.
It’s a socially perceived aspect which allows inclusion into a group. Hence playing a game at a specific timeframe to talk to others about it and otherwise missing out for example (this is the social media FOMO style).
Neither is applicable with Uberroth. Neither will people talk about the Uberroth fight at the same time… and if so they generally talk about how BS the fight is, not how you’ve beaten him. Nor is it a fight which is in danger of being ‘phased out’ and hence any related rewards to be gone from thereon.
Hence it is not FOMO.
What the situation is is based upon competition against oneself or the game (whichever) and the unrealistic aspect of success regarding it. As well as the aspect of perceived ‘wasted time’ in that case. Why the wasted time? Because if you ‘choose the wrong build’ you have basically a 0% chance of handling the fight, which is not something that should happen in the first place.
The last aspect plays into hits:
Which has still nothing to do with FOMO.
This is the psychological aspect of comparing yourself in social status. You feel bad when comparing yourself to your friend because ‘you have a lower social status’ related to LE now. Why? Your friend is ‘further along’ despite using the same time investment for example. That means your time is less valued then his time comparatively, and that causes negative feelings.
Which is a natural thing. Being at the top of the social ladder is a form of power, and power is security. Just because it’s showcased in a game doesn’t mean our brain is better suited to handling it in a different way. Quite the contrary as games were formerly a measure of learning and adaptability, which means skills that relate to practical results in a survival situation. At least generations upon generations ago, which is something that might phase out from our brains in maybe a few thousand years in the future, so not quite there yet
This for example is another issue, and that one is related to market equilibrium. A good game enforces a early market equilibrium, or a gradually changing situation which still allows lower-standing players to have avenues of progress.
This is another badly designed aspect related to MG this time, which in this case is the availability of endless ‘storage space’ in the market. It makes no difference if you throw in 100 items or 10000 items, you can still endlessly pour in more. That causes flooding and isn’t allowed to happen.
Hence games usually offer limitations to a ‘freely opened’ market without any time limitations for listings. And time limitations are a major hassle.
The alternative is listing space, hence limited spots.
This enforces players to choose what to list and when, which means as the players which have better builds and get better results progress they mandatorily need to take out cheaper items from that space to free it up for more expensive ones, which allows players starting out to take up the position in the market instead and still have revenue coming in.
In the case of LE this is not a thing, supply massively outpaces demand and value is non-existent with only the top-tier items being available. Comparatively in Path of Exile with the limited tab space that needs to be bought the listing space is limited, so people take out their ‘5 chaos’ items in favor of only listing ‘1 divine’ items as the lower items simply wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Yes, that sentence makes sense.
It’s still the wrong application.
Much like ‘Current’ might mean the flow of water or the flow of electrical charge. ‘Missing out’ has more pronounced meanings as well and this is one such case where we need to differ between them.
One would be the fear of ‘missing out’ on experiencing something without a time-based limit. Hence everything is FOMO immediately if we take this case… which obviously is not helpful as the term FOMO is meant to describe a specific sub-set of situations only.
So we can only take the FOMO as a clear-cut time-based aspect without it loosing the meaning of the term.
I’ll say it clearly: This is only an issue with D4 and with LE. Neither PoE has that (all OP builds get reigned in at the end of a league and severe cases even during a league) nor Torchlight Infinite (they only reign in power at the end of a season). The only outliers are LE and D4 which don’t dare touching anything during any of their seasons, and when they do they get respective backlash as it’s not the common way they do handle things and hence it falls out of expectations.
I mean… EHG went along to have a friggin poll related to this topic, which is absolutely baffling and sheer incompetence as that’s a case of a developer having to do things opposite of the community perception to provide a long-term viable product rather then a short-term viable shitty mess.
Still not behind your usage of the term.
But I agree otherwise 100% with your argument, I’m at the same position.
Uberroth is a bad design and they screwed themselves, which otherwise 1.2 could’ve been a fantastic cycle without any major issue outside of the pre-existing ones… but they had to throw a wrench in the workings once more… not a single cycle since release there which wasn’t in one way or another a major issue.
First the faction mess - which isn’t solved yet. Then the Boss DR versus Ward mess - which flipped design philosophies behind the mechanics 180 degrees - and then we got Uberroth - which is absolute nonsense market-position wise and related to their core audience.
EHG showcases being absolutely inept in terms of producing a coherrent game. I get that mistakes large and small happen… but neither has the reaction time adequate nor the measures when a reaction happens adequate at all.
Which is why perception-wise LE is the ARPG with the least build variety existing. Loads of fun builds exist… barely anything is viable though.
And that’s a death-sentence long-term.
No, PoE uber-bosses are actually reasonable for nigh every build when you get a grasp on the core game mechanics, specifically how to deal with offenses/defenses.
Which are convoluted but absolutely doable even for a new player, or not doable for a several thousand hour playing game-veteran, depending on their focus.
But you can absolutely and reasonably do it
Kinda as if EHG failed to cater to their target audience, right?
We got a boss which only comes up at 300c which a majority doesn’t play a lot of time in… and usually beatable at around 500c comfortable farming power level.
And then we got a follow-up boss which arrives at 500c and is barely able to be beaten at 1000c even.
Like I’ve said, EHG fails to adhere to their own target audience.
Aberroth is the boss of harbinger-Update. As long as people play above c100, they will fight harbinger, which is part of Arberroth-content. They don’t need to ‘finish’ it, as long as they play within that c100 to c300 and enjoy. That’s target audience I would say.
Weaver is up to c300 Woven Echos. Then there is that one c500. I wouldn’t call Weaver content anything much above c300. Most is used c100 to c300, yet again.
That one c500 Woven echo is like 5% of the actual 1.2 update. It IS an endgoal, yeah. But the remaining update is without that Echo, only up to c300 then.
For me, between c300 and Uberroth, there is nothing inbetween. Nothing like Harbinger-content. So in this case I agree for c500 to not be target audience. And with Weaver barely containing few c300, it doesn’t look to target above c300.
(Sure, you can use it afterwards. But the feeling of progress is only up to c300)
Uberroth seems to be for only most strongest player as target audience. In other games I was one of those player and it s fun to have ‘something’.
But Uberroth does not seem to be very enjoyable (yet)
Wish the best of luck with balance changes ^^
Playerbase:
Online player might push each other higher in corruption by using trading and beeing in groups with more knowledgable people… I really wonder where the biggest playerbase actually plays …
I beat Aberroth after 500+ hours playtime (offline, solo)
With a friend without previous knowledge, we still need lots more than 100 hours…
we did MS a few more times to try classes. That’s part of the fun, part of the first player experience, right?!
Within first 100 hours of new player, maybe half of it will be MS? Maybe?
Bet most season-player wanna play mono c100+ only ^^’
Back to topic:
Main story is still replayed every season and played by every new player. The changes to that due to season and updates are kind of the main topic in this thread and not Uberroth^^’
Fair. Albeit we gotta say that the balance of the campaiugn also is ‘all over the place’ still.
We got a reworked first Act, which is really good! It gives a good intro on what to roughly expect. The issue follows with Act2+ though. Act 2 was reworked, but the difficulty of the boss there compared to Act 1 is like day and night. Not to speak of nothing beyond being properly reworked yet and also the campaign not even finished yet (4 Acts missing).
This is a mess to say it mildly and a disaster beyond anything to speak openly. EHG need to finally focus on bringing the core experience in a good state rather then implementing content which is absolutely useless for 99,9% of the playerbase. That’s to be implemented when the base game is in a good state, not before. End-game yes… pinnacle content? They failed entirely there to properly time it.
So… should the experience for a offline player change? Absolutely! Because the game is unfinished still… despite being released. It’s a glorified beta which plays well. Much like ‘/ Days 2 Die’ was a beta until a short while ago but for ages a full-sized game. People joked about them being a forever-beta… but they released when it was done to their liking. EHG released before it was ready, the game is severely undercooked.
But as soon as that baseline state is achieved? I would definitely urge EHG to not touch campaign at all but work from after and expand the game gradually piece by piece rather then messing around with overburdening it like GGG did with Path of Exile before having to backpedal seriously and screwing it up for everyone for years before they finally got their shit together to actively show what direction their general expansions are supposed to go… and that was only achieved not even 2 years ago, a ‘good state’ which before was ‘a disaster’ with everyone being unhappy but no alternatives available on the market.
Nowadays? Alternatives are there. We got Torchlight Infinite which is really large by now and well designed… we got PoE which is large and leaning towards QoL nowadays, which is the missing aspect… and we got LE which is content dumping nonsensically… each got their issues but they keep each other in check to a degree, so go too far away from ‘a good state’ and the game will break apart, simple as that. Why? Because another game is there to move to which is better managed in that case.
Only if they’ve only bought 1 tab. While PoE does use limited listing spots, its a very soft limit & one that you can increase by spending IRL money to buy more tabs (not sure if you’re aware of that), so your “people take out their ‘5 chaos’ items in favor of only listing ‘1 divine’ items as the lower items simply wouldn’t be worth the effort” isn’t really going to happen because of listing space. They’ll start listing the more valuable items in addition to the cheaper ones but only respond to messages for the more expensive ones leaving a whole lot of low value items listed that don’t get sold.
What does that sound like?
TBF, some people do respond to lower value trades & i get why people don’t respond, though it’s a bit weird when they list said low value item a few mins/hours beforehand.
Sorry, I’m confused. PoE & Torchlight Infinite don’t nerf builds mid league which is good, but LE & D4 don’t nerf builds mid league which is bad.
Again, I’m confused about what the baffling incompetence is, the stance of “no mid league nerfs only bug fixes” or the communication with the community, 'cause GGG & Blizz don’t do that.
A question, should pinnacle bosses be a player skill check, a gear check, a build check or some mix of the three?
Or, maybe they don’t intend Uberroth to be do-able by the vast majority of the playerbase like he’s some kind of pinnacle boss? Maybe their view on pinnacle content is different? Why is that a bad thing? Should pinnacle content be do-able by everybody (with a sufficient build) or every build (with a competent player)?
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Maybe their view on pinnacle content is different? Why is that a bad thing? Should pinnacle content be do-able by everybody (with a sufficient build) or every build (with a competent player)?