@Llama8 I’m aware of that I played all of them and in ESOs case you can either subscribe or buy the Expansion outright to gain access (the most recent expansion is excluded from subscription). Most of that content is dir 1-4 Players anyways.
The important part is, “content” in those examples are new regions, new stories, new quests and new characters (among other things). Not “Just” new mechanics and stuff to grind. You can even buy small questlines for a few bucks that unlock e.g. Thieves Guild questline.
Because of it’s setting LE provides such a huge potential in that regard. I’d love to see more quests that involve time travel to be solved (like the one with the guard amulet).
I’m not here to tell anyone he’s got bad taste or whatever. Everbody has different takes on what he/she likes. It’s just that, in my case, mechanics like “We now implemented fishing and depending on the fishing rod quality that you have to farm for you now have a chance to get item x out of a fish - depending in your fishing skill - that you need to craft item y that is super strong for build z” is really content in my Imagination
But walking to an NPC to walk to another NPC is to deliver an item then kill 30 xx is content?
PoE releases new bosses almost every league, new items, new skills to break the game with
Scourge had for example permanent unbreakable Ward, Invulnerable Boneshatter Jug, 3 Scourge bosses and all the scourge mods, and multiple revamped league mechanics and cut half the Atlas, re did flasks again - all delivered in 12 weeks. apparently isnt content
Please re-read. This is not what I am talking about and I guess you already know it.
Reworking skills and mechanics or existing content isn’t exactly new content, it’s QoL. If there’s a decent story connected to killing x Monsters - and lets bei honest, killing stuff is why we mostly play ARPGs - why not.
I haven’t touched PoE in a while but played it for hundreds of hours. But not once managed to finish the Atlas because I got dumped into so many seasonal stuff that I lost interest. And alot of the things they introduced back in the days wasn’t accessible for a huge part of the community.
Again, I already said I think seasons will be a part of LE. If they’re good, accessible, extend the main Game without bloating it needlessly I’m all for it.
That is the PoE approach.
Throwing shit on the wall and see what sticks, adding lots of bloat over time to the base game. Both campaign and endgame.
The question may be asked why people even return to games that have leagues and are mainly live service based.
Is it a few new items and character progression reset mainly (D3,D2 approach) or there needs to be more flavour to entice a big part to come back (PoE approach)?
I guess it really depends how good the base game in itself is to make low bloat leagues a reality. I assume LE will have quite a few alternative endgame options, way less than PoE currently but still more than Wolcen,D3 combined to play at least 2-3 weeks straight.
League rewards and content, what i currently think, in case they dont want to introduce too much blaot over time and keep campaign + endgame mainly the same. Again only assuming the base game is good and has already enough alternative endgame systems:
Cosmetics / free stash tab(s),
new monsters +items,
temporary events that only last one league + not added to base game but could get a permanent entry in a account wide journal (or similar) as a some sorts of reminder
rankings + league summary. Same as D3 & POE.
All campaign time rifts, while keeping roughly the same location, tell a slightly different story each league or major patch (post launch) but still fitting for its timeline
The usual (in LE’s case hopefilly slight) rebalancing of skills,passives and items, to keep the game “fresh”
Not sure if that would be enough to make players coming back but we will see.
probably every time the same campaign (although you have already played through it with all classes)
probably every time again the normal monoliths to get to the empowered monoliths (although you have already played them with all classes)
you torment yourself without halfway usable equipment (although in some way you could recently draw from the full, because dozens of crate compartments are well filled)
you might play one of your favorite builds for lack of new, for you interesting new skills (of course weakened - even though you might have upgraded it to near perfection for the last 5 leagues)
I can well understand all those who do not want to stand there every few months with empty boxes and on lvl 1.
Many like to talk about player numbers which rise at the “league start” like a few weeks.
The players in World of Warcraft evolve their characters but also for ages always further, there is no one complains to my knowledge that they do not have to start every few months at level 1.
This is for me somehow like development (WoW model) VS standstill (always without something to stand there).
/Mini Brainstorm end
PS:
A few more posts, then another summary will come.
I played all of them and in ESOs case you can either subscribe or buy the Expansion outright to gain access (the most recent expansion is excluded from subscription). Most of that content is dir 1-4 Players anyways.