The chance of an end game skill tree on a single skill

[Macknum]

@DJSamhein

Because, as Kulze pointed out, most people that reach max level consider their character as “done”. So they stop playing.

The I don’t know most people. I only know people who have enough time to play one char and that’s it. Are there any sources or studies on that topic or is this hearsay? I’m just very intrested in this but google isn’t pointing out anything specific.

@DJSamhein

So what’s the effective difference of building a hill to die on “max level is hard to get to” or “you don’t get any post-max level systems”?. And the answer is simply what types of players you want playing your game.

Because one thing might convince to disheartend players to give the game a try and the other is just saying no to people who already played the game. Sure if you only care about the echochamer you want your game to be inside you are completely right and there is no need to talk about this further ^^.

@DJSamhein

And, as a sidenote, the “friend with little time” isn’t a valid argument for this. This is a genre that requires time investment. If you don’t have the time to invest, you should try another genre. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true.

This isn’t that helpfull to someone who only playes hack and slash games because it’s their fav genre . Sure both things don’t mix well but I will not dictate what other people who have little to no time.

[DJSamhein]

@Macknum

Are there any sources or studies on that topic or is this hearsay?

It’s simple psychology. Games keep people playing as long as they have further goals to play for. If your character is level 100 already, what is your goal to keep you playing it?

What we have sources of is that most people don’t finish the campaign. We also have sources for only 20% of people reaching level 100 on D4. Despite D4 being clearly targetted to casuals.

@Macknum

Because one thing might convince to disheartend players to give the game a try and the other is just saying no to people who already played the game.

Why would players that never play the game be disheartened by knowing level 100 is hard?

This whole argument is simply a target playerbase issue. D3 leaned fully into the casual playerbase. So does D4. Which is why most PoE/LE players will play D4 for a couple of days each season and are done.
LE/PoE don’t lean into the casual playerbase. PoE wants the hardcore grinder. LE wants the altoholic.

I can say, as someone that played pretty much every diablo-like out there, that D3 was the game that held my attention the least. I would play, get to max level in 2-3h, cap paragon in 3-4h, get all gear in 1-2 days. At that point there wasn’t anything left to chase, so I would quit.

So having an easy max level has both benefits and drawbacks to a game. And it all depends on which players you want to attract.

@Macknum

This isn’t that helpfull to someone who only playes hack and slash games because it’s their fav genre . Sure both things don’t mix well but I will not dictate what other people who have little to no time.

Of course. But it’s not the game’s fault. The game doesn’t have to cater to people that only have 2h to play per week. Otherwise players that have more time would only play for a day before leaving, which is not healthy for the game.

Also, and this might surprise you: getting to level 100 in LE isn’t hard. It’s just time consuming. Since there’s no XP penalty on death, if you keep playing you’ll always get there eventually.
So if your friend doesn’t have much time to play, he should play standard and keep progressing slowly over time. He’ll get there eventually.

[kozlow]

Having something beyond 100 can favor the retention of players and this is positive in general.

In The Division, for example, which is a shooter with RPG touches, you continue to progress your character almost indefinitely after the maximum level.

I say “almost indefinitely” because it is considerably difficult to reach the additional thousand points.

In general, in the mentioned game, the build is already ready long before reaching the first “post-maximum” point.

The bonuses are small, but they satisfactorily deliver the feeling that time is not wasted. The player can still choose between four options to distribute the new point, so there is a feeling that you decide which benefit the endgame will offer you.

You went on a mission, didn’t find useful items, but your time wasn’t completely wasted, as your character’s progression increased a little more.

I have the simple feeling that the community is easily divided between the casual and the frenetic. One of the challenges of aRPGs should be to captivate a casual person so much that they feel like trying out the real endgame, even if this was only on weekends; however, maintaining fun before the endgame starts.

Furthermore, this time-poor player base doesn’t need to be lost, after all, don’t we have the characters out of season (cycle)? The guy just needs to keep playing outside the cycle.

Notes:

• depending on the class and subclass you select, no, level 100 is not a side quest. Contrary to this, it’s entirely possible to feel like something is still missing and would be happy to have 10 more points to hand out.

• Level 100 is the end and the character is ready for casual players and that’s okay.

• Progression does not necessarily need to be the character’s. It can be from items: perfect rolls are difficult to achieve on blessings, items and idols. Today we already have a progression of blessings, which is insignificant, but it exists. This progression could reach equipped idols as well (if you find a better idol, good for you, if not, he’s passively progressing while playing).

[Airowird]

Counter-point: When you have an infinite paragon-system, it can easily feel as if you need to farm X amount of time to be ‘ready’ for endgame.
In D3 you didn’t really get to ‘endlevel’ until you hit 800 paragon (iirc) so casual players might feel put off by the time needed to get there, not to mention feeling baited by a secondary level progression.

Especially if you don’t have an end-cap, it can feel as if there is a ‘minimum’ level to be viable. Especially if it’s a permanent gain, you’re actually gonna put off players from trying out new characters, because they lose all that progression. The Division doesn’t have classes, I believe, so doesn’t have that issue.

[kozlow]

Casual players don’t need to know this part. Do they know the rarity of a T6 with hybrid health on a minimally decent basis? Or do they know the rarity of many LP3s, or even more LP4s (of good items, let’s be honest)?

Most casual players don’t have the discernment to follow a build guide, as I usually see people getting endgame guides in the global chat, where I frequently interact with the community.

The proposed point is exactly the opposite of what you said. It’s not about trying to discourage beginners or casuals, but rather to at least reward the troglodytes who insist on liking this game even though it has such a shallow endgame (like me).

I said in my answer that EHG’s challenge should be to captivate casuals to the point that they want to know the endgame.

It’s not about giving your character a huge boost, but rather giving you a little something to make up for the bad drop, for playing a map and “drying ice” (as we say here in my region).

Yes, The Division has classes. As I said, it’s an FPS with RPG content. And yes, the SHD (post-maximum level points) are permanent for all the characters you have and for those you create in the future. It’s an account-level gain.

edit:
As a curiosity:

SHD (points after maximum level) in TD2:

A little more accuracy in weapons, ammunition and reload speed, nothing that allows you to stop searching for ammunition during missions or hold the trigger without losing control of the weapons.

A little more health, nothing that prevents you from dying if you don’t use the health kits.

A little more critical chance, headshot damage, weapon damage, nothing that prevents a good base build.

edit2:

With respect, I disagree with your point on another aspect:
No one should feel that they need these extra points to go to the endgame, if these people are already properly inserted in the endgame.

This is an error that is up to EHG to avoid, but it is not something inherent to the post-maximum level points system as you establish.

[Airowird]

So casual don’t need to know that an entire progression mechanic exist, but you still want to captivate them to want to get there? That makes no sense.
Casual players know at least exalted items and Legendary Potential exist, even if they don’t know the drop rates. Because a) it’s in the Game Guide, and b) even if they just play the game without care for any guides, they’re gonna encounter them before finishing normal monoliths. Just like half the randos starting Diablo 4 will see that big “Paragon Board” button before they reach level 50.

Calling them too braindead to do anything but follow a guide makes you look like an elitist [REDACTED]. Not to mention that if they are invested enough to go look at maxroll or similar for guides, they’re probably gonna see any endgame mechanics mentioned on there anyway.

And according to the wiki, The Division does not have classes. The Division 2 has them(specializations), and as far as I can tell from my Google-fu, you can swap between them without much issue, but you didn’t mention it was actually the sequel you were referring to in your post. You also didn’t clarify that the progression is account-wide, a massive distinction in a discussion about character-progression. You, in fact, kept referring to leveling a character.

As for an account-progression system… If it’s gonna be seasonal-bound, that’s pretty much the faction system with some extra levels at the end. If it’s permanent across seasons, then it’s a loyalty program and from the moment a player sees that “account XP” bar show up on their screen, there exists a reasonable chance they are gonna think “well, this game is only for no-life troglodytes, I’m not gonna bother playing catch up to everyone else with 1000+ hours invested!”

The fact you’re willing to argue that “just a bit more health/crit/damage” doesn’t matter is insane and makes me think you’re just trolling me. It doesn’t matter for endgame geared players. It definitely matters when lower geared or leveling alts. I invite you to level through D3 with & without Paragon and claim it is the same experience and difficulty.

[kozlow]

You are unwilling to understand and unwilling to agree. No problem. Life that goes on. Have a good time.

I won’t waste my fingers.

[Airowird]

Pot, Kettle.

Goodbye!

[Kulze]

@Macknum

This isn’t that helpfull to someone who only playes hack and slash games because it’s their fav genre . Sure both things don’t mix well but I will not dictate what other people who have little to no time.

I never understood the aspect of ‘But make stuff shorter because I have no time!’

It makes no logical sense at all.
Ok, we imagine we’re someone who has really little time… like… 3-4 hours a week.
So, they need what? A month to play through the campaign? Maybe 2? Half a year beyond to reach Aberroth? Nice! It’s done! All content has been played through, simply enjoy running around and playing the game like ARPG players generally do.

Play Legacy, Standard or whatever else it’s called, the core games are solid after all, enjoyable, allows to progress and outfit characters over time.
I’ve got a 40k miniature Army sitting around… mostly unfinished since I’m primarily a gamer as my main hobby and everything else is filled out. But I damn well don’t ask Games Workshop to provide me with pre-painted miniatures since I don’t have the time!

A Hobby is a time-sink, nigh every hobby is. And many are money-sinks too. Hence you either focus on specific parts if you really want to get something done there… you just enjoy the experience while you engage with your hobby… or if it’s making you anxious for ‘missing out’ then friggin get out of that hobby and do something else instead, it’s not doing you well.
Don’t expect said hobby to change for you though.

[Macknum]

@DJSamhein

What we have sources of is that most people don’t finish the campaign

So we have none… sad this topic was intresting.

@DJSamhein

Why would players that never play the game be disheartened by knowing level 100 is hard?

It’s widely known and you don’t need to do any indepth research to get this information.

@DJSamhein

This whole argument is simply a target playerbase issue

There is no issue, at least for me. If devs and publishers only want a smal fraction of a market share so be it. If they want to exist in an echochamber without even trying to appeal to a broader audince that’s fine with me as well. There are no issues from my side I’m used to narrowminded people, in this case I talk about the dev example ^^.

@kozlow

Having something beyond 100 can favor the retention of players and this is positive in general.

There is a lot beyond level 100. Considering how bad the loot drops are in hack and slash games you’ll never minmax a toon in a lifetime. So in theory there is enough to do to get the last .00000001% power spike ^^.

@Kulze

I never understood the aspect of ‘But make stuff shorter because I have no time!’

if you get level 100 in 10 minutes or in 1000 hours makes no difference. The endgame of every H&S game is loot. We all know how trash loot rates are so noone will ever minmax a toon in one season or a lifetime anyway. The level is, as I mentioned it many times, just an important milestone for many people.

[Kulze]

@Macknum

So we have none… sad this topic was intresting.

What do you mean ‘we have none’? That’s obviously not true. Even if no play-time statistics are openly presented (which are likely internally available) nonetheless there’s the steam database analytics available. According to them the current average play-time of the game per player sits by 81,3 hours.

81,3 hours hence is the number given by the overall count of all owners of the product which have started it up once, which means for every 1000 hour player we have roughly 12 ‘non players’ to derive this number.

Given that the average play-time for a new player is expected to be 20 hours for the campaign this means the average play-time solely sits 300% above the cut-off for finishing campaign. Since we have quite a lot of players investing 200+ hours into the game total (and several with 2000+ hours as well, Beta times are included) we can say the chance for players to have around a 25% chance to even finish the campaign would come decently close to the reality. Likely less rather, this is a positive estimation.

True, no direct, true, hard-numbered facts… but it would be fairly surprising if Last Epoch is the only game on the market which is a outlier of the norm. Nothing indicates that after all.

@Macknum

It’s widely known and you don’t need to do any indepth research to get this information.

This on the other hand is very true. People have a proclivity to not start things which they deem unrealistic to finish in their mind. Be that true or not.

@Macknum

There is no issue, at least for me. If devs and publishers only want a smal fraction of a market share so be it

First of all… this clearly is an issue since the proclivity of different personalities is vastly different. Meaning that market share is not directly correlated with completion rate by design since long-term players provide a higher total overall market share despite a lower playercount compared to high playercounts with a low engagement rate, simply because they have less of a chance to lean into heavy spending.

It’s not about broad audience or small audience either, it’s about positioning yourself on the market in a space which has people take it over other presented products.
Because we need to be entirely fair here… Last Epoch has no chance to provide a unique experience currently either in mechanics nor in sheer content volume. The first simply for the case that it follows the core design principles of basic ARPG mechanics as nigh every competitor does (some better some worse) as well as having not the development time to catch up to the competition to compete in quantity yet. That’ll take time and is the major aspect fo why GGG is so well received… they shine in quantity and hence generally address more different mindsets then their competition, which gives them their large market share.

So EHG can only position themselves in the niches in-between, grow bigger and solidify their position this way into a stable long-term product that is hard to drag from its throne at what it does. And they do a good job with that.
Punishment for failing content is not as harsh as in PoE 1 or 2 but harsher then in D3, D4 and Torchlight Infinite. XP loss doesn’t exist… but XP gain is slower paced then competitors to make up for it. Long-term playing aspect to provide a goal even over several cycles given the variety of mastery classes. And several more points.

@Macknum

So in theory there is enough to do to get the last .00000001% power spike ^^.

Depending on mindset there is a cut-off point for realistic acquistion though. The moment a player realizes their goal will take them 10k hours but their frustration limit is at 500 hours settled they stop. If someone finds out they’ll get everything they want in 500 hours but their frustration line is at those 10k they’ll feel ‘empty’ because the game doesn’t provide them enough.

@Macknum

if you get level 100 in 10 minutes or in 1000 hours makes no difference.

For the psyche it does. There’s no way around it. Raising number goes stale. Goal reached, game limit reached.

A very very massive portion of people play solely based on content provided. Hence… they beat all content with a distinct end-point and then they’re done (End-line Aberroth in LE’s case). For fewer people the distinct end-line is any progressible secondary system outside of content itself being finished. Hence completionist mentality, which is maxing out Blessings… level 100… such stuff. Clear-cut, doable, end-goal in sight at all times.
And a very small amount of players go beyond into the min-max aspect.

If you solely want to provide a game for a broad audience without care for longevity then you provide a fantastic fairly long campaign and no end-game… because that’s how you get the biggest turnover rate of individuals to play the game. But they do it only once… which obviously doesn’t work with cyclic games like LE. Hence you provide end-game, so people have a longer amount of time in which they can enjoy the game. And then you provide progression beyond pinnacle systems for those which want to push as far as possible.

A missing ‘cut-off point’ which is at least partially reached is fairly important (LE is a bit wonky in that) but also not mandatory for short- to mid-term. But for a long-term game like a live-service one? 100% mandatory to have in a solid position, better early then late.

But that wasn’t what I was talking about either. As a individual you can’t complain going into a experience which is tailored to a specific clientele and then complain that it should instead be tailored towards you personally… that’s just not how it goes. You can shine a light on things saying ‘Hey, if you do this… you’ll likely get a bigger clientele!’ but oftentimes there’s already something available which does exactly that… so moving to that would be the better choice. And if not if the vision of the creators even aligns with that clientele shift. Not every company is out to get endless money without a seemingly infite increasing scale… in entertainment there’s a good junk of companies which just wanna… entertain people, and that’s it, money being a great bonus and necessity to do it, but beyond ‘I can do it now’ measures not mandatory.

[DJSamhein]

@Macknum

It’s widely known and you don’t need to do any indepth research to get this information.

Well, why is “players that reach max level consider the character done and stop playing” required to have sources or studies and there’s no discussion without them, but “players that don’t play the game get disheartened if they know level 100 is hard to get” is widely known and doesn’t need either sources or studies?
I’d say one is as widely known as the other.

@Macknum

If devs and publishers only want a smal fraction of a market share so be it.

This has way more implications than the simple statement you make it out to be.
If all the devs want to do is expand their playerbase and market share, then all ARPGs turn into D4. Since that’s the one that has the most players and makes the most money.

PoE only wants a small fraction of the playerbase. And by doing so, they place themselves completely opposite D4. PoE has no effective competition. D4 players (other than a small minority) don’t like PoE and PoE players (other than a small minority) don’t like D4.
So while they might have a smaller playerbase than D4, they have a loyal one and lasting one.

Not only that, there’s also the matter of your integrity. Some people would rather make something they’re proud of, a legacy, rather than simply maximizing profit for its own sake. Otherwise all games would be P2W, since that obviously makes a lot of money in the long run, as long as you can manouver the line that will make players leave the game forever (like the infamous idea of paying real money to reload your weapon in a competitive FPS, which I can’t remember which one it was right now).

@Kulze

This on the other hand is very true. People have a proclivity to not start things which they deem unrealistic to finish in their mind. Be that true or not.

Level 100 in LE isn’t unrealistic. It’s not even hard. It just takes some time. If you keep playing, since you have no XP penalties, you’ll eventually always get there.

[Llama8]

@Macknum

If devs and publishers only want a smal fraction of a market share so be it. If they want to exist in an echochamber without even trying to appeal to a broader audince that’s fine with me as well. There are no issues from my side I’m used to narrowminded people, in this case I talk about the dev example ^^.

Ah yes, devs chasing the mythical “broader audience/playerbase”, 'cause that always ends well (lowest common denominator).

@Macknum

if you get level 100 in 10 minutes or in 1000 hours makes no difference

Then why does it matter whether it’s something that uber-leet powah gamers hit or anyone & everyone who so much as boots their pc up will hit?

[Macknum]

@Kulze

True, no direct, true, hard-numbered facts… but it would be fairly surprising if Last Epoch is the only game on the market which is a outlier of the norm. Nothing indicates that after all.

Oh boy… you know the average person plays a few hours every now and then? What you are looking at is involving a lot of extremes that make this asumption flawed to begin with. As I said i was intrested in studys based on facts done by professionals not only counting playtime and divide it by playernumbers.

@Kulze

It’s not about broad audience or small audience either, it’s about positioning yourself on the market in a space which has people take it over other presented products.

Isn’t PoE2 a counterargument to what you say? If I look at the playernumbers it all of the sudden looks as PoE is the second or third most played H&S game of all time. With your point of view the growth should be very very very limited and only some players more should’ve picked up PoE2. Non the less the numbers speak of far higher volumes… so somehow they aquired more players who had no intrested in PoE beforehand and increased their market share.

@Kulze

Depending on mindset there is a cut-off point for realistic acquistion though

Yeah and some people reach this point before buying if you present them unrealistic numbers while others grind for thousands of hours and are happy. While I guess that both extremes balnce themself out I still think there could be more potential players if the entry level of the game isn’t as absurd. Again PoE2 might be a good example of this because it’s more streamlined then PoE so to speak.

@Kulze

A very very massive portion of people play solely based on content provided. Hence… they beat all content with a distinct end-point and then they’re done (End-line Aberroth in LE’s case).

Yeah that’s a fair take and a fair thing to do.

@DJSamhein

Well, why is “players that reach max level consider the character done and stop playing” required to have sources or studies and there’s no discussion without them, but “players that don’t play the game get disheartened if they know level 100 is hard to get” is widely known and doesn’t need either sources or studies?

It highly depends on the game you play. I play Hero Siege for a long time (even before the paragon board esque addon) and getting max level there was nothing at all. After you reached that point you still wanted to do bosses, CTs uber bosses and progress in the wormhole. There was never a very high influx of content in this game and guess what the game is growing because nothing about this game is disheartening and you can play it on a potato. A lot of factors are playing togheter and unreachable goals are simply disheartening.

@DJSamhein

I’d say one is as widely known as the other.

And I say “Is it?”. I have a far higher influx of people I play with that don’t start playing games at all when the numbers are unreal to achive. Someone looked at LEDB and how realistic it is to get certain items on certain LP levels and was instantly done because the numbers to him were insane. So to me this is far more common and known then anything else. Okay if I remove the option that my whole clan informs themself about games rather then blindly buy them things will most likely be different.

@DJSamhein

This has way more implications than the simple statement you make it out to be.
If all the devs want to do is expand their playerbase and market share, then all ARPGs turn into D4. Since that’s the one that has the most players and makes the most money.

Maybe… maybe not. You can make an approachable game that is easy to start out, easy to reach goals and very hard on the end so all the “Me not want easy game duh!” people have something to chew on. From my point of view it’s strange that devs corner themself to cater to people who imagine themself wherever on a spectrum.

@Llama8

Then why does it matter whether it’s something that uber-leet powah gamers hit or anyone & everyone who so much as boots their pc up will hit?

Because it’s important to people to reach it ^^. Not the end of the world bad but people are disheartend if there are goals ingame they can’t reach to begin with. If you hook people into a game and over time they find out that there is a lot to do and to achive and some of said achivements are unreachable they are already in non the less.

At the end of day it’s up to devs and we’ll see about it. Having this discussion as a non native speaker gives me hedaches because I always feel like I’m unable to deliver my point properly ^^.

[DJSamhein]

@Macknum

Maybe… maybe not. You can make an approachable game that is easy to start out, easy to reach goals and very hard on the end so all the “Me not want easy game duh!” people have something to chew on. From my point of view it’s strange that devs corner themself to cater to people who imagine themself wherever on a spectrum.

Why would a casual player play a game that starts off easy and then becomes impossible, knowing that they’d remain only “halfway done”, when there is a game that is fully casual all the way?

Your argument here goes entirely counter to your max-level argument. If a casual player knows that the endgame is very hard, then he will be disheartened and not play it. If it’s that way for “Level 100 takes a long time (even though it’s not actually hard)” why would it be different for “I can never reach the end of the game because it’s too hard”?

[Kulze]

@Macknum

Non the less the numbers speak of far higher volumes… so somehow they aquired more players who had no intrested in PoE beforehand and increased their market share.

What a surprise… and also 100% correlating with my argumentation line.

First of all, they took years to branch out. Secondly, PoE 2 is not PoE 1, it’s a different game which - while similar to some degree - has another core target audience while offering a partial overlap to the first game.

There’s been years and years in which PoE 1 got ‘out of hand’ from Chris Wilson which always wanted a more slower paced and harder/punishing game instead of the ‘zoom zoom’ meta of PoE 1. Hence at first came ruthless-mode, then some changes like Archnemesis… which was a total flop… and that all the while PoE 1 and 2 were supposed to be ‘one game’ back then.

They realized that their plan to bring PoE 2 to fruition isn’t working without separating it completely from the first game and hence they made it standalone because the target audience is too different.

I would say they did a great job in realizing what positions their individual products have and hence putting them accordingly on the market.
Other devs would’ve enforced it and lost half their playerbase instead (For example Blizzard).