Don't Put New Legacy League Zana Crafts In Permanent Leagues 2.6.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

the reason the Zana league mods are being removed is because the new leagues have all these league mods as the theme of the leagues.

And I think that it was a mistake on GGG's part to tie the Zana changes directly to the league, and especially explicitly saying that it was. The implication ends up being the assumption that league stones will be permanent additions to the game so everyone will (at some point in the future) have access to league zones again. I feel like they've put the cart before the horse in this case. Personally, if they wanted to test league stones as a replacement, I would have preferred to see the new Zana mods introduced without an simultaneous replacement tied to a league because it is a core game change. The game existed without access to "league zones" for a time, and divination cards still give access to all the actual items, so while it may have caused some noise it wouldn't have created this specific standard vs league problem. If after that change (or if they never had leagues as a zana mod at all), they introduced legacy league as a new way to gain access to league zones, I think that the feelings of standard players would be more along the lines of looking forward to the potential of using league stones rather than what's happening now. Zana being the gateway to leagues had already become a bit unmanageable as they started to give her a rotation that meant certain league zones were already not accessible to anyone for the duration of a 3 month league, and I think that if this change had been presented as a different approach to zana to stop this arbitrary gating that it would be more clear that the change was to address a balance/content/access issue in the game as a whole. As opposed to the clear message that everyone is losing the Zana leagues because they don't work with legacy and only because of that.

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Emphasy wrote:

Thing is this analogy would only make sense if the player numbers would also be switched. Right now they just avoid a major mess up for 3 months, because splitting those mods up and exspecially reserve new database space for another row of entries might look easy, but it could as well be a lot more complicated. Because until now there was no reason to seperate those mods. And I'm not sure if it does for 3 months.

For player numbers, you are vastly underestimating how many players play permanent leagues.

If GGG come out and say 'the technology isn't there', or 'even though we put thousands of man hours into each league, we can't justify the xx hours to do separate Zana mods then we can talk about that. They haven't, yet.

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Emphasy wrote:

Also technically many of the league areas are still avaible by using a darkshrine in the lab.

I don't even...

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Emphasy wrote:

So that those Zana mods change with every league shouldn't be new, so Perandus being gone is not something people couldn't expect.

It is expected, and accepted, that one or two Zana mods become unavailable on rotation. It's neither expected or acceptable that all are unavailable, not least of all because of a league mechanic which makes them ALL available in the leagues only.

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Emphasy wrote:

And technically this mechanic already exists in standard you just have to wish the HC players bad luck so they die a few of the league tokens into standard.

Are you suggesting that the leaguestone interface is available in permanent leagues?

If the interface is available and the Zana mods removed, just drop the leaguestones.

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Emphasy wrote:

So there are two different options both resulting in a different approach:

a) Those tokens are used in the future in standard as well, which means Zana is essentially replaced by this mechanic in triggering those areas. This means though that redoing their database and seperating the Zana mods for 3 months is not worth it.

See first response.

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Emphasy wrote:

b) The tokens are not going to standard, which would mean they have to do something anyway, which could still mean rolling zana back, which would again affect both leagues, so again no need to seperate it.

I'm pretty sure leaguestones will be a core game feature in the future. If, for example, they don't make it in 3.0 and the new Zana mods remain, refer to my analogy, I'd love to see the acceptance of league players when they have no access to any old league mods or uniques.

Of course, this wouldn't happen, in that scenario of course the old Zana mods would return. Why should this be of no importance when concerning permanent league players?

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Emphasy wrote:

Overall they made a clear decision to essentially safe work. And people shouldn't forget that there used to be no way to get old league areas back. I'm not sure where this entitlement of getting league exclusive items comes from, it didn't work that way before and now with Divination cards there is a way to get those items anyway.

Use this assessment globally. Don't look at permanent league players as being entitled, the only reason you are using that is because permanent players are the only ones losing. Reddit would blow up if the league mods and uniques were unavailable in a temp league.

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RichMoney wrote:

<...>

Well I agree with everything you said, Rich.


So the only way they should have handled this situation we have right now was to not change the Zana mods (or to rotate them as normal) for permanent leagues, for this league duration.

Which is my entire point.

GGG definately needs to check this. Anuhart is right those changes to zana make sense for temp leagues, but its a giant "fuck-off suckers" for perm leagues. Simple as that.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

So the only way they should have handled this situation we have right now was to not change the Zana mods (or to rotate them as normal) for permanent leagues, for this league duration.

100% agree
How is this guy not a valuable poster?

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firemind13 wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

So the only way they should have handled this situation we have right now was to not change the Zana mods (or to rotate them as normal) for permanent leagues, for this league duration.

100% agree
How is this guy not a valuable poster?

Probably because most of what I post is of little value.

Oh, wait, that doesn't exclude one from being a valued poster.


OK, because most of what I post is of little value and I'm not part of the clique.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Probably because most of what I post is of little value.

Oh, wait, that doesn't exclude one from being a valued poster.

OK, because most of what I post is of little value and I'm not part of the clique.

Going to church isn't enough, Anu, you need to follow the word of god.

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raics wrote:

Going to church isn't enough, Anu, you need to follow the word of god.

I put religious people in two brackets.

Those crazy enough to believe in a sky god.

And those corrupt enough to pretend they believe in a sky god.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

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RichMoney wrote:

<...>

Well I agree with everything you said, Rich.


So the only way they should have handled this situation we have right now was to not change the Zana mods (or to rotate them as normal) for permanent leagues, for this league duration.

Which is my entire point.

I tend towards a different conclusion because in my mind that's not a real option, but then again I'm not part of the player base that is without league zones.


My point summary would be that:
1) Branching the zana mods may not be an easy thing to do mechanically from a development perspective and could introduce problems/bugs as it's can be relatively easy to add league mechanics on top of the base game, but there is probably no process or system to allow the existence of different master mods in different leagues.

2) It would undermine their ability to evaluate the appeal and usage of league stones as the only "league zone mechanic" (rather than competing with a player's level 8 zana on perma). In my mind the best way to evaluate would have been to change the zana mods to these new non-league versions prior to introducing the legacy league. In the past the game was without access to previous league uniques but now the would still be available via divination cards, so spending some time without league zones might be frustrating for everyone but it's not unprecedented and doesn't completely cut off access to any items or builds.


3) While it sucks to be in the current situation as a standard player (especially SSF) and the situation could have been better set up by GGG (introducing these new zana mods before the league for example), worst case scenario is likely that you're without the league-zone mechanic for 3 months. Could this be an opportunity to explore playing the game differently for a short period of time considering that SSF is supported and there's league mechanics in legacy.

4) The standard practice is that there is a separation of core game mechanics and league mechanics and while the zana change is directly tied to a league mechanic it is still a core game mechanic and should maintain global balance.


Additionally it just occurred to me, that the league stones are actually going to be available from ripped hardcore legacy characters in standard. During prophecy, I was able to access the prophecies that I had equipped already. If I have league stones equipped on a character that dies, those may not interact well with zana "league zones" if they were still in play.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

I put religious people in two brackets.

Those crazy enough to believe in a sky god.

And those corrupt enough to pretend they believe in a sky god.

I suppose we're all a little crazy here, yes.