I think the mistake PoE made is adding too many of the League mechanics to the base game. In fact, I think that should either never happen, or happen really rarely with some mechanic that the devs actually want in the main game anyway, so they just “Season” it into the game.
Why?
Re-Use. If you do a Season, then remove it, you now can re-deploy that Season a year later. Players who joined after it ended now get to experience it for the 1st time, and veteran players who liked it the 1st time can do it again. There is a saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Removes bloat. Too many things to do at end-game just waters everything down, and players will ultimately do only those things which are “most efficient” to powering up their build, and ignore the rest anyway.
No Separate Game. Seasons can be added & removed from the “Main” game. Players can try out the Season with their old characters, or roll a new one. Each newly rolled character after the Season starts has a “flag” on it indicating its a “Season” character (and which Season) and that character is eligible for the ladder, special rewards, etc. related to the Season whereas existing characters are not. There can be a separate SSF ladder (if there isn’t already, I don’t follow the ladder thing right now) for each Season which would totally mimic the separate “server”/“game” effect.
Hmm, tough question. Much appreciate you gathering my opinion.
My first instinct would be to want to play it on my pre-established character as I find games enjoyable when I am being fairly challenged. This means that the new characters I make are few and far between - I prefer to do research on what class / build looks engaging and farm / trade specifically for that character. I realize creating a game with this ‘Scenario’ is an incredibly difficult job for developers as it entails having an appropriate feeling of character power, enemy power, scaling power… and none of this is including Multiplayer or what others want.
A good example is probably D2:R for me. So, for D2:R, once I beat Hell Baal and Ubers in Tristram I deflated a bit because… what else was there? I got my money’s worth, sure, but while my friend continued to play I dropped it. I just didn’t see the need / fun of running Hell Baal or Hell Countess over and over for… getting loot to complete things we already did.
I don’t mean for this to be a cop-out, but it depends on the features added lol. A few things that would be important would be,
Will my already-made character be able to do this eventually?
Does it add new challenges that impact my character build significantly?
Do I have friends who want to do it?
Is there a new story / reason for me to be interested?
This is one reason I really love LE’s current endgame. I think it was a stroke of genius to do “what-if” scenario’s at the end of time. Sure, I might only be getting a single line of unique dialogue… but eh, it’s cool to me to imagine “What-If” scenario’s while grinding my character and pushing toward something.
I never participate in “seasons” or “ladders” or anything like that but it never has crossed my mind to do or say anything that would deprive people who enjoy them.
Not sure I understand the psychology behind this post.
Looking at a certain other ARPG, I think it’s safe to say that seasonal content works… Keeps the game fresh ever so often and gives them a lot of room for creativity.
The devs have also said multiple times that they’re going to be quite the same as PoE’s Leagues, only they would call them Cycles in LE. Don’t see the point of this thread when it’s going to be a thing regardless. And to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve seen somebody try and argue against it, for sure not a popular opinion.
I’m sure they’ll add their own little twist to it but I’m not expecting them to do something wildly different from a formula that works.
I’m a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” kind of guy. I think the success in making a great game is to take every well received thing and ignore the bad from other games and just add your own spin on it, doesn’t have to be wildly different.
Don’t ask me for a source on this but they did say they wanted to maybe introduce new timelines (acts?) and keep those going forward. The content going alongside those timelines would be something like a new class or masteries. I’m guessing classes that are based on the overall theme of the Season and such. I’m content with all of this if this is their way of keeping the game fresh.
I’m more adventurous and hope they try something new… but I suppose that comes from 3 decades of playing games and being bored by the same thing with a different coat of paint…
nice thing is that trying something new is part of the purpose of the whole seasons concept…
Then I assume they will need to fix it, because PoE Leagues are broke. Only elite streamers play in them now, and people are turned off by bad Leagues entirely.
That’s why I think EHG should take time to try something slightly different. (my ideas are previously posted, won’t repeat)
Last few leagues are received poorly by a number of things (balance) except the League content itself. Scourge being the exception here because they marketed it as “corrupt your items to maybe something good” which 99% turned out to be complete garbage and is only used for maps.
So no, not much to fix there other then to not drastically change the game and making it more grindy. I have more trust in EHG on this since LE is is much easier to balance thanks to the way it’s build up compared to PoE’s overload of intertwining systems.
I think seasons are just a lazy way devs use to artificially refresh interest in their game. Instead, I’d rather resources go into developing new zones, bosses, encounters and items, that would have the same effect, but wouldn’t force players into restarting from scratch every X months. Some people just don’t have the time, or inclination, to repeat the entire grind to the end game, just to experience the “new” content. Not only that, but if it’s done like POE, then anyone not wanting to play the season itself, and wait for the new mechanics/gear/skills to reach the core game, end up with a watered down version, if they get it at all (Harvest anyone?).
If you’re excited about a new mechanic, why can’t it be experienced right in the base game? If you, yourself, want to experience new stuff from scratch, why not just play that way when new mechanics are released? Not sure why everyone has to be forced to partake in a reset-from-scratch, just to interact with newly released content. Never been a fan, and never really understood it.
Seems like the existing Solo game mode would accomplish this for players not wanting to take advantage of their existing stashes. Maybe the devs could just introduce a way to migrate characters from Solo-Normal game modes, for people who want to start from scratch for new content, but then allow that character to later share gold/stash with their existing chars (not sure how to handle over-lapping stashes, but POE figured it out, so I’m sure LE could as well).
Now, if you want to have separate “Ladder” servers, that’s different, but don’t subject the default mode(s) to seasonal resets just to partake of new stuffs.
That is already in the game. With a Solo character, press Esc, go to Settings, then Challenges and disable the Solo challenge. You will only keep your inventory, you lose all the stash content, but after that the char is a “normal” char and can access the shared stash and resources.
Apparently I didn’t clarify what I was trying to convey, so thanks for the snarkiness (which is expected from you I suppose).
I think relying on the announcement of new seasons is lazy. When a dev/designer should keep the game itself fresh. D3 does it all the time, relying on the season itself to promote interest, instead of the actual game content. If a game is constantly being refresh, with new zones, areas and such being added and/or improved, then that in itself should be enough to keep the interest there. Not having to announce a new season, reliant on some stupid ‘fresh start’ for everyone.
And, since you mentioned GGG, how do their seasons work for them, exactly? Sure, the start of a season see a swarm of players returning, who then promptly leave 2 weeks later when the ‘laziness’ shines through. Keep the game itself fresh and interesting. Relying on a gimmick will only work for so long, before you run out of gimmicks.
I’d imagine that it depends a lot on the league & how well received it is. Also, just because you don’t like a thing doesn’t mean that it’s lazy. They have a large team (how large I have no idea) that works for 3 months on the league (& shifting the previous mechanic over to standard/core).
If people want to compete and measure body parts over twitch/youtube or wherever, because they removed some pixels from agame, then fill your boots, i prefer being a filthy casual, knowing i can play the game(inc leagues/ladders/seasons) at my own pace, whilst also having somewhat of a life in the process.
