I’m old enough to remember in POE when auras were scaling mana costs, and could be lowered using Reduced Mana Cost support. Old Skewl aura stackers ran Wrath, Hatred, Anger and Haste prior to Enlighten support, or any Reduced Mana Reservation nodes on the passive tree. And, we were all pissed as fawk when it was changed to a % mana cost and could no longer be lowered with Reduced Mana Cost support…
I’d be curious to see what number of people play POE single-player, using the MP functionality only as a trade engine. Since that’s pretty much all I ever use it for, and all I planned on using LE’s for… until they announced that wasn’t really going to be possible.
The replies were largely predictable despite my disclaimers. No, I’m not here to grind an axe about D4 or PoE, I have no clue how the market will respond to D4’s monetization model, and yes, the current PoE game IS a shit show, which is why I’ve avoided it for the last year or so. And yes, I was around forever in PoE, from beta to launch and well beyond so I know as well as anyone what it took to get it to where it got. But that show’s over. Not interested anymore.
I did not find Grim Dawn or any of the other contenders to be very compelling. Everything I see about this game’s mechanics gets me excited, it’s why I purchased it and have been waiting on a MP release. My wife and I game together exclusively, neither one of us plays SP games or even games without the other, we game together and limit ourselves to MP games, so this is an honest desire, not some axe grinding lol.
Look, I understand “wait till it’s right”, I always prefer that to a rushed release. But aren’t we well past the point of considering a MP release “rushed”? I admire the loyalty of this fan base, but doesn’t anyone here feel like perfection can become the enemy of “good enough to be great”? No one worries that the devs are narrowing their window of potential success?
If that’s the case, you might want to think on what the point of making the post was, especially when it’s just a copy of other posts that have already been made. Because ostensibly, the point was to solicit and engage with other peoples’ opinions, whether they agreed or not, but based on your reaction here it seems like what you really wanted was your own opinion with different usernames above it.
Are you privy to insider technical information about the current status and viability of multiplayer that the rest of us do not which suggests that to be the case? Or are you just trying to dress impatience up as wisdom so it’s more palatable?
I believe you already asked and received answers to this question.
To me, it sounds like he doesn’t know it is coming with the next content patch. Maybe he does and this is just an “I want it NOW” type of post. J.G.Wentworth style!
I mean, it’s fairly disingenuous to gauge success against games with long, well-established followings. Because, regardless of when LE releases, in relation to those other games, players will jump ship. It’s just the nature of the landscape. Especially the streamers… and wherever the streamers go, a large portion of the flock will follow.
Now, long-term retention is the more important goal here. And that can only be gained by having a successful, relatively major bug-free release. So, it would be in LE’s best interest to hold off until they can do so, whether or not that causes them to launch before, or after, the release of one of those other games.
IMHO, I would wait until after, if reasonable possible. That way, YOUR game is the new one being checked out. And, if you’ve done your due diligence, leave a good impression, and get that long-lasting retention.
My concern remains if MP brings trade, even if it is only in party trade, will that force loot drops to be balanced down to accommodate? That punishes solo players.
This right here. It’s not constructive criticism, which would be full acceptable. It’s just someone wanting be the ‘it’ guy for bringing a ‘relevant’ take to everyone else. If we want to discuss the nuts and bolts of what should and shouldn’t be in mp, let’s have at it and give the Devs something actually worth their time to read. But this signaling stuff is just nonsense.
Did you ever by chance check out the mod scene for Grim Dawn? If not there are 3 amazing mods, Dawn of Masteries, Grimarillion and Reign of Terror. The first has classes from D2, D3, TQ among others. Think it totals around 40 classes.
Grimarillion only has the TQ and D3 classes added, but it is much more balanced than DoM.
Reign of Terror is probably among the best mods ever made, it is an extremely faithful remake of D2 using Grim Dawns engine.
Plus there is a fan made and modded league if thats your thing.
That game with mods can you keep you occupied till, well, forever. Multiplayer too.
A thoughtful response, thank you. I think you make the best case for waiting longer.
Contrary to what other responses have implied, I don’t know wtf other posters have been saying, I’m not here to repeat any of it, I never check in on this forum other than to see what the state of MP is and then I leave, and come back again 6 months later. It’s getting old. But thanks for putting together a non-aggressive well-reasoned reply.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m not usually a mod kind of guy, I like sticking with the stock releases supported by the devs and not fooling around with unsupported tweaks. But I appreciate your attempt to give me something to think about regarding Grim Dawn. Thanks.
They also made game quite moddable in the first place. Many people ignore it when companies spend time and money to make game moddable and think modders are the only people to thank. I made a modding tool for Grim Dawn that let you change lots of things in tens of thousands of files in just a minute all thanks to how base game files were organised.
Back to topic at hand, I am on the MP camp for this game. I wouldn’t know if not having it hurt the player count a lot but I do think people waiting for MP isn’t insignificant.
One thing to consider though, all those examples have seasons and such to bring back the MP players regularly. Will LE have enough resources to devote on developing seasons in a timely manner?
Yeah, that’s a valid question/concern. If you look at PoE, their early leagues were much, much smaller & less ambitious compared to their later ones due to the smaller team size they had. I see no reason why LE shouldn’t follow the same kind of path if that’s what they want to do (though obviously things are a bit different due to LE having a box price & PoE being F2P).
I have been playing Torchlight Infinite and their league mechanic is basically a ‘fill a bar by killing mobs’ then you press the button to spawn waves im guessing depending on how much you killed
Its good because its basic and has agency, you can do it when its ready each time or just wait until the end of the Map and spam it 3-5 times if your build can handle it, first initial league mechanics dont need to be anymore than this at first imo
Torchlight 2 is a great game on its own, and it also has a pretty extensive roster of mods like Grim Dawn. I know you said you werent into mods, but they are really pretty great.
Trade is an independent issue and doesn’t even have to be a part of a good multiplayer game. Guild Wars 2, one of the most successful and thriving Triple-A MMOs, has no player-to-player trading at all, other than indirectly through the Auction House. The devs of this game can implement MP without introducing any so-called trade balancing.
