Prophecy, GGG, and Wasting Potential

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Azarhiel wrote:

Removing content will also make players leave because they will think that their time spent in the game has no value...

That's exactly why I stopped playing Destiny 2. What's the point of investing any time in that game if the developers are just going to invalidate it by removing content and the time I spent engaging with it?

If PoE starts doing that shit next, I'll abandon it too. This, and Warframe and Guild Wars 2, are often examples of games which are much bigger and keep all content that I point to when arguing with Bungie fans who think removing content (which you paid for) is good.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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Azarhiel wrote:

Removing content will also make players leave because they will think that their time spent in the game has no value...

That's exactly why I stopped playing Destiny 2. What's the point of investing any time in that game if the developers are just going to invalidate it by removing content and the time I spent engaging with it?

If PoE starts doing that shit next, I'll abandon it too. This, and Warframe and Guild Wars 2, are often examples of games which are much bigger and keep all content that I point to when arguing with Bungie fans who think removing content (which you paid for) is good.

+1
So far i only play Forum of Exile. I remember old leagues where was
time/grind = rewards. Rn i cant invest so much time to mindlessly run around + i dont like clear map in 5s. I preffer to make slow runs. I dont like blocks/evading etc. i preffered facetanking with pure armor which i dont feel anymore. So far PoE is a no for me and ppl who ask if they should give it a go/ Wait till next league and see if PoE will get better or worse, thats my plan so far.

I liked flipping fated stuff from time to time, and I'm usually in here dumping on GGG mercilessly, but I really can't say this decision is a bad one. Design by accretion is one of the biggest problems facing any game with regular content updates. For all their issues, I've always felt like GGG is one of the best at handling that problem. Sometimes the old stuff just has to come out, and they should probably do that more often, tbh. It's not the only solution though, and the game has been big enough for a while now that I don't think it would even fix the problem just to cut more.

The game is a teetering pile of mistakes that the devs don't have time to even become aware of before they need to work on new stuff. They're already always working on new stuff, and that pace is going to make the game harder to balance the more they keep up with it. They've stuck with the three month league cycle for as long as they have because being owned by another company means they're committed to permanent growth or else, and so far turning themselves into a fast-paced content mill has allowed them to deliver on that promise. If they keep releasing janky disappointments because they don't have time to make and test better decisions about how to fit all the stuff together, they're eventually going to have churn rather than growth, and things will deteriorate very quickly when that happens.

I've argued for this solution before, but if they're taking a hacksaw to old stuff that doesn't really have anything wrong with it, it's certainly time to consider it. They shouldn't be releasing a new league every season, and they shouldn't be asking whether the new league should be added to core every season. Core should be core. Acts, whatever the Atlas is doing these days, probably also Delve and Bestiary, maybe Incursion. Nothing else should be included by default, including most of the stuff that already is. At least two seasons of each year, and I think it'd be better to do three, should recycle two or three old league mechanics, modernizing them where necessary, and adding small stuff to the older ones that makes them fit better with the newer ones. Don't even include everything from the leagues you do put in; because we kept adding more stuff to "core" for so long, lots of them already have content that relates to other leagues which we're now stripping out. Only drop items for the leagues that are in this season! Like, talismans, they've hung around for god knows how long even though it seems like they'll never bring the actual Talisman league mechanic back. Why? It just gives you more interactions to worry about.

If they're that scared of tanking their growth if there's not always new stuff coming out, here's what I think is a great compromise: rather than having flashback events, just give people an option other than "the current experiment" and "the character graveyard." I'd love to play Standard if it weren't permanent. The periodic reset is essential for the economy to feel good for most players, so if you want to play the game but the current league sucks, you're kinda just SOL for three months.

Just run another league parallel to the new one that rotates in tweaked old leagues. There's both enough players and enough content that you really shouldn't be making most of your playerbase test the new stuff every season if they hate it. Radically stripping back what "core" means also makes it possible to make new leagues specifically to work with particular old leagues once they go in rotation, rather than trying to make it work well with everything we currently call "core." So, the new league could be presented by itself or alongside one other thing that it's meant to expand upon, and Flashback League could be a different set of three old leagues. Now, if the new league is busted, less people will quit because there's a known good combination they can still get the full trade league experience in, rather than having to go play in the graveyard.

My honest belief, because I know it's probably what I would do, is that most regular players would wind up playing the Flashback League rather than the new one, and that's a good thing. The new league is always an experiment; with the game at this scale that should be reserved for people who are really into PoE and want to give constructive feedback on how the new stuff works and how to integrate it with the old stuff. So, the new league would be split up between those dedicated players and whatever newbies came in from watching streamers play it this season, the two most valuable categories for feedback. Regulars who just want to play the game would be more likely to play Flashback because with multiple league mechanics running, and all the stuff from leagues that aren't in the season being stripped completely out, Flashback will have more interesting interactions between those mechanics. It's sort of like the difference between Friday night Magic and a cube draft.

I wonder how many people have consciously played Prophecy during the last 3 months, like followed the chains to the bosses and killed those (not just dump all the currency without reading the prophecies). I read 3 years ago already that players don't even pick up the silver coins anymore.

I mean, the whining is surely huge here, but what about some facts and statistics?

Also why would GGG ever remove their best leagues like Breach and Delirium???? The whining seems also be greater than the thinking.

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_iLLuSia_ wrote:

I wonder how many people have consciously played Prophecy during the last 3 months, like followed the chains to the bosses and killed those (not just dump all the currency without reading the prophecies). I read 3 years ago already that players don't even pick up the silver coins anymore.

I mean, the whining is surely huge here, but what about some facts and statistics?

Also why would GGG ever remove their best leagues like Breach and Delirium???? The whining seems also be greater than the thinking.

If players stopped interacting with Prophecies, there is a reason for that.
When you're the game dev of the game you have 2 options :

1/ Find why players don't engage with that content and change it in a way that players would like it more. Problem is that it takes time for no real income on GGG's side.

2/ Take the lazy way and remove it, preserving your workflow for next batch of income, but in doing that you say loudly that you don't respect the player base that made you successfull in the first place.