The Dangers of "Playing It Safe"

Feedback and Suggestions
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Before I get into this point, I want to say that I appreciate where the devs’ hearts seem to be with this game so far. It very much feels like a “From Gamers, To Gamers” deal. This is sorely needed in the industry right now, so I hope we continue to see this in the future. On to the point…

As I’ve played through this game and explored what it has to offer in terms of gameplay, mechanics, build variety/interactions, and the general gameplay loop, I see a lot of familiar territory. I don’t necessarily see this as inherently bad. However, if I were a highly critical games journo, my headline would probably read something like, “The best executed version of highly derivative ideas.” I know that sounds harsh, but a lot of what I see in the game so far appears as if it took working gears, cogs, and springs from a variety of other games to build a new machine. In a sense, most games do this. However, the way it is done here has this highly risk averse vibe. “Just do what works” is a phrase I hear from other players about it. Let me give some concrete examples.

  1. Obligatory, mandatory campaign mode with mostly non-interactive story
  2. WoW-style quests (chores)
  3. Skills revolve around mana (hopefully we see other resource systems down the road)
  4. Fantasy setting
  5. Player Character as the “savior” that NPCs inexplicably and implicitly trust with potentially world-ending magic/artifacts
  6. Optional content as “endgame” instead of the focus of the game–weirdly, this is in opposition to how players actually see these games

There’s plenty more I could add, but I think I made my point (hopefully).

The danger I see with LE–and I genuinely hope this doesn’t end up the case–is that it would be easy for the devs to continue to play it safe with known models rather than begin introducing new and interesting ways to play the game, build characters, tell stories, etc. This would make the game very boring in the long run and probably kill its longevity.

To compare and contrast, we can easily just mention Path of Exile and Wolcen and I’m sure most people here will immediately know how these examples relate to my point. Just to be clear, though, it’s simple. Wolcen did very little that was original or innovative. It feels like a D3 clone with a light sprinkle of PoE’s skill tree thrown in. LE is currently a slightly more advanced version of this, imo, but LE still has a future. However, PoE is constantly experimenting with new things. They aren’t afraid of failure and have on occasion admitted to said failure (Bestiary and Synthesis come to mind), then adjusted accordingly. I’m not going to pretend that game doesn’t have a slew of its own issues, but it’s undeniable that it is currently the premier ARPG of our time. This willingness to take risks, experiment, and innovate is at the heart of their success.

The next danger I see is that playing it too safe would cause it to grow so slowly as to eventually fade away. I think this was the case with Torchlight 2. It seemed like it had a great foundation to grow from, then suddenly just… didn’t. Thankfully it had mod support which kept the game alive for quite awhile–especially thanks to Synergies mod. However, they missed an opportunity there. They could have hired the Synergies author, provided him support staff, and grown that into a full-fledged legitimate extension of the game. That author had a much larger vision for that project than what it ended up being, but it would have fit very nicely with TL2 as a whole. Which leads me to…

It’s important to seek individuals with vision and talent to help the game become the best that it can. Too many dev teams end up as a cloistered clique that lack external perspective. I’m not implying that EHG is like this… yet. It’s simply something to beware of and avoid. Fresh talent that aligns with the higher concept goals of the team can do a lot to provide something new to the game–and the players. This short documentary is a great example.

As I said, I don’t have a problem with using a Safe foundation to get a game started. I want to see the game grow into something unique and genre defining–this cannot happen if they only copy and integrate ideas from other games. I will offer suggestions to this end on other topics in the future, and I know my fellow players will too.

This post is in no way designed to denigrate LE’s devs/staff and I DO NOT want to see that in the replies. My hope is that these criticisms will be see for what they are: constructive and coming from a desire to see this game succeed. You all know the CoC, so please, be respectful of the devs… and each other, if you can. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I agree with most of this. What actually was original in Wolcen were the God forms which i really liked. No other game in the genre had this.
I think the bugs also killed the game but yeah it was to much of a clone in many aspects aswell in my opinion.

This is my biggest fear for this game aswell. With this am not saying everything in LE is the same as in every other game in the genre.
I do agree however that it lacks the crazy experimenting or a big factor/traidmark that makes LE, LE, for me atleast so far.

I do like the changes on their more Synthesis league of POE approach but in a different version. I still hope to see some crazier or totally different things however if it wants to be a really good game instead of a mediocre fun game which you play once a while.
I think the potential is there however with some base ideas that EHG put in the game. The portal system for example. That is something unique i think.

I just hope they will do more with it and more crazy/unique stuff to stand out and make the game even more fun.

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While not overly crazy or unique, what I would like to see from their class system is more variety in resource management. I would love a Mastery that changes all the skills to behave more like Sacred 2–no mana costs, just cdr. You have one path of the Mastery that gives everything individual, but longer cooldowns. The other would have shorter, but shared cooldowns. This is just one example. There’s a vast potential of other things they can do. They just need the vision and willingness to take that leap.

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Well i think with so many moba games that we have nowadays there is such a big pool of ideas how you can design a character.
Heroes of newerth had a Heroe, Gladiator. His main weapon was a wip. He could return players to his position if they got caught in his small arena that he placed in an area.
Then he had a Ultimate skill with horses and a wagon riding over a certain area in range which stunned and damaged them and that skill looked so sick.

That was such a unique character and he had no Sword axe or the usual stuff that this genre does. Iam not saying copy the full character, that is probably to hard or to much work but aspects of it would be cool. I still hope we will get a different type of guy with wings or a wip or something gimmicky like that. Just something different that we already saw ;).

I have to be honest here, well having played many titles i didnt played sacred 2.
The character you describe sounds cool!

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This is the base mechanic for skills in that game. One side of that is the default, the other is “expert mode.” I forget which is which. It’s really fun, though.

Edit:
In the very long-term, I hope this game can have a wide enough variety of play styles and content that whenever I think of a game I have played with a particularly cool feature, I would have a choice to play that or something like it in LE. I would also have a choice to play something that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

THAT would be genre-defining to me.

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I just want them to play into the foundation they already have. Opening rifts and time travel. They could even do something different with the portal. They could make it so the portal opens in many different times, allowing monsters from other times/dimensions to step through.

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Hm iam actually considering playing that game then. I atleast will watch some videos of it to see what you mean. It sounds intersting to say the least!

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Fair warning about that game, it’s quite dated these days and aspects of its leveling system are pretty bad–like TES: Oblivion kind of bad. You can L2P and overcome them to enjoy the game, but it’s kind of rough at first.

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Thats more then fine by me aswell but i didnt saw them saying anything about that right? Or did i missed something?

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Yeah i dont think i can handle the outdatetiness but ill watch some videos!

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It’s interesting because, apart from this, the more I read about PoE, the less I understand why people love it. In fact, most PoE lovers hate some aspects of the game. Not the same aspects for all players.
I feel truth is that we don’t really know why a game succeeds or not. For any piece of art, success is the combination of the right moment, the right content and the right audience. Some movies would have failed if released six months later. Some books would have succeeded. And it’s the same for games. This conjonction of moment, content and audience makes the succes, plus the duration in the case of games. The quality of the game has very little to do with this, sadly.

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Their game is genius ruined by the same stubborn developers who’s vision for the game havent changed in 10 years

the currency in PoE should of revolutionised aRPGs but the problemis no one can copy them

gold doesnt exist in that game

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I can’t agree with this. Temporary success? Sure, this would explain it. But the long-term sustained success that PoE has seen? No. There’s a definite reason (a confluence of reasons, really), and the ones outlined have born results over time.

You need only look at its competitors to see how few of them are still relevant and the kind of things they are trying in order to be/stay relevant.

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Gold may not exist, but currency is currency. Runes were currency in D2 when gold stopped being relevant. Players will always find the thing of value and use that if the base currencies are insufficient or non-existent.

As for PoE’s myriad issues, part of it stems from having such a wide audience with conflicting desires for the game. Part of it is the devs being extremely (and sometimes stupidly) stubborn on certain topics/aspects of the game. Part of it can be blamed on the players who have put way too much time and money into it (not above this myself).

Whatever the case, it’s still the best offering on the market right now and there isn’t anything looking to significantly threaten that in the near future.

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I really hate to be that guys, but that was not an original idea :smiley:

It was a 1 to 1 copy from Dota 1 Kunkka.

But yeah I agree that there are alot of mobas out there that have outstanding character concepts and kits.

Even though moba characters generally have very small but close cooperating kit.

Which is really hard to do on a larger scale, if characters do have dozens of skills.

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What this might look like in practice for an ARPG is grabbing a few characters with similar enough themes/mechanics to base a class off, then add your own original touches and adjustments to have it fit well.

For example, there are a bunch of characters across many games that use a Rage mechanic for their resource. It’s worth exploring what skills seem to fit well with that style of resource, how they feel to use, and what they might be lacking. Take the best of all these things and make your own class that really shines.

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No problem, we all have different feelings and analyzis.
PoE’s relatively long term success is due to two factors, in my opinion.
First, its inherent qualities. A game would not succeed like this if it was fundamentely bad, so I guess it has strong qualities. I tried it a few hours, I did not find it interesting, but it’s personal feeling so I’m OK to say it’s a good game.
Second, the lack of credible competitors. There are other ARPGs/HnS games, and some are very nice, but none had what it takes to meet success. So when you have no new possibility, you stay with what you have.

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Is there anything new under the sun?

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The technology needed to come first, before Moba’s were even possible.
After Covid, I’d say get ready for Zoom ARPG’s!

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It was more a reference to the concept that most ideas for characters can be shown to be taken from preceding ideas or characters in older games (even going back to pen & paper RPGs).