…Is that how it works? I went down the naive route with forum threads:
In short you are correct - this ARPG genre is inadequate. Its niche fans do not see it, even though many admit its flaws (its mindlessness, in particular), but the comparative lack of interest and its relatively low ceiling is becoming undeniable.
At the risk of getting philosophical I’m starting to suspect the popularity of games is tied to human nature. I think the fundamental flaw of this genre is its effective assumption that people are mindless. They may appear rather mindless depending on where you look, but time and time again it has been shown in gaming that people respond to being challenged. As far as ARPGs are concerned I believe the biggest leap lies in what characters can do. Six actions often being reduced to the incessant spamming of a single one is contrary to human nature. Progression is enough to keep some people around but when you combine the superficiality of what players are able to do with a lack of challenge the game really becomes Diablo IV: The Biggest Idiot. Elon Musk has like 11 kids and works at 4 different companies - he’s the literal meme of who this game was meant for. But a stupid experience is not what the market is looking for.
Seasons are ok.
Diablo 2 worked because it was novel. There is no novelty now. Amusingly, the mediocre developers and dimwitted fans of this genre take pride in not being innovative and trying to be like Diablo 2. True story.
The gameplay is this genre’s fundamental weakness.
I think the entire market is trash.
You can’t innovate if you have no imagination and ambition.
There is a lot argument that LE cost $35, it is because it cost $10 to make as it has terrible graphic and animation which are the major cost of a modern game. You can compare the game size 25GB vs any $70 game with the size at least triple.
They just hire some part time animator, create a game look like 2009 released and copy a bunch of D3 and POE ideas and also free consultancy from the community and sell you for $35. People stop play it after it run out of content after one month and only left with the ugly graphic.
The reason players stick around in the other games mentioned is because players can continue to make progress on their characters and in the case of helldivers, actually inform what happens going forward. They dont have to start over from scratch every three months just to see new content. That is the biggest turnoff to this genre.
" Muh ARPG tradition"
Your tradition sucks. D2 is a 24 year old game and the groundhog day thing doesnt cut it anymore. Gaming is suppose to evolve, not stay stuck in the past.
I disagree. It is one of the reasons that people come to play to begin with.
I don’t know why a game or any genre needs to make you want to play it forever for it to be considered successful, in fact it does not. The proof is that title after title Diablo for example just sells more than the previous one, which means that people still enjoy it for what it is. People could even say they were misled by previous titles or something, but for the fourth time there are no excuses. One can hate himself for this, but yeah can not deny he actually like the franchise.
If you are in the mood of playing a grinding game, revolving around items with an isometric camera gameplay using a mouse, well no other thing will fulfill this desire but a Diablo like game, and this is the reason most of us keep on buying and playing Diablos, PoEs, LEs, Grim Dawn’s and whatever comes to fulfill this kind of entertainment.
You want Destiny 2 like seasons, from what it looks like – though I could be misunderstanding. That can’t work in an ARPG loot hunter based on itemization chases. It would mean they’d have to completely overhaul the entire item system every season. That’s not feasible.
Right, generalities and majorities are not representative of every single person. It’s perfectly reasonable to say crows are black. Albinos exist. Yes.
Yes, but it should also be acknowledged that those games that do not have seasons still sell well, and have a following, and given actual meaningful updates to a game, seasonal resets are not needed in the slightest.
ARPG people*. Many others lose interest due to how under-developed, basic, and repetitive the gameplay is.
Straw-man.
No other game because all the moron developers cannot imagine more than to continue catering to a moronic subset of players. I’ve written this before, and I’ll probably write it again. God didn’t come down from the Actual Heavens to give all you idiots - from players to developers - this immaculate and immutable ARPG genre that came into existence in a moment of blinding brilliance within His mind. Very, very much to the contrary. A bunch of halfwits decades ago came up with Diablo I and II that are renowned mostly for being new in their time. Nowadays a bunch of nowits keep trying to beat the concept to death either because they really are that stupid and just cannot move on from rudimentary gameplay or because a bunch of executive and finance vermin are telling them to keep remaking something because it seems like a low-risk way of making money.
There is nothing special going on in any of these games. God bless you, there are some of you who are just easily amused. The problem is, you aren’t enough for anything more than mediocrity. If mediocrity that makes enough money to justify itself is good enough, let’s just come out and say it for what it is.
And then come back again when they want, that is normal with any game.
Sure, I guess mediocre players are able to like many genres and games, for different reasons and even in the same genre would play different games for different reasons. God forbid me to not be an advanced being that can only like one thing and wants it to be good forever. You know, expecting a square to be a cycle seems to be a proof on knowledge.
I can’t talk in the name of God, but I am pretty sure that you can change a game as much as you want and also even, I know it will sound unbelievable, create new ones :), it is not like we do have nowadays other item based ARPG games in many shapes and forms Diablo, Borderlands, Dark Souls, etc. that after these changes became, you know, different games, that feels different, which is nice, but maybe elite people just think different.
They didn’t necessarily lose 200000 players. Those are merely concurrent player numbers, not how many are playing.
Early on, many people are playing more hours a day, so concurrent numbers will be higher. You could have the same amount of players later on, while concurrent numbers are halved.
People already played it. They don’t need to keep playing it forever after for it to be good.
All that being said, I consider the extreme season focus to be a blight on the industry. It likely causes a lot of “why should I begin to play in the middle of a season, better wait for the next one”. I wonder how many just never gets around to playing again due to that cycle.
Wish devs would just focus on making a good base game, instead of temporary gimmicks and “forced” resets.
Well, from my end, I don’t care about the seasonal gimmicks at all. I would actually prefer for them to not be in the game whatsoever. Just reset the economy every 3 months and let’s go.
Except it does, because why would so many ARPGs double down on it if it didn’t?
Like, I see this sentiment expressed all the time and it never fails to baffle me. Even after ten years, Path of Exile still brings in hundreds of thousands of players each seasonal reset on Steam alone. It broke its peak player count on Steam as recent as last year at the start of a new season. Diablo III did this for thirty seasons, and Last Epoch is going to do the same.
If seasonal resets weren’t a feasible concept in today’s industry, developers wouldn’t waste their time with it. Its high prevalence across several games suggests otherwise, and anyone suggesting that it’s a dated concept is actually a deeply unserious person.
Nobody said they weren’t profitable. The point being made is that it pales compared to other games. The players coming back to do seasons is a small core group of people no where near the numbers of other games. That is just a fact backed by numbers.
Helldivers Steam Charts
All time peak last month 458,709
24 hour peak 263,884
POE Steam Charts
All time peak 12 months ago 211,637
24 hour peak 175,852
Last Epoch
All time peak last month 264,708
24 hour peak 46,076
Very true. I could care less if there is anyone else playing on my shard. If SSF was available I’d be on it. But the topic of the thread is a good one for discussion and it seems like some posters don’t want it or are living in denial.
Who cares? If the game is successful and still brings in enough to remain sustainable while also grow beyond its own parameters, this is a non-issue.
I don’t think that’s the only point being made. If you’re saying seasonal resets don’t cut it and are dated, then you’re implying it’s no longer sustainable, which clearly isn’t true as I’ve already illustrated to you.
The only game that is actually evergreen and is within the top 10 most-played games on Steam right now is Helldivers 2. And no disrespect to Helldivers 2. It’s a phenomenal game, but it’s anecdotal and is antithetical to the many other games like Lost Ark or Destiny 2 that have only decreased in popularity, which you’ve conveniently ignored just to prove a point.
My point being: If you like evergreen content, that’s cool, but to imply that it’s the only way to support a game in 2024 is incorrect.
Holding Helldivers 2 up to most games is going to look silly. The ARPG seasonal system is actually very lucrative because it doesn’t require a large player base beyond once a week every 3 months. That’s when all the new cosmetics come out and that’s how they make their money. Not to mention all of the server and bandwidth costs they save in between seasons.
I guarantee Last Epoch breaks it’s previous all-time high for the second cycle, btw. PoE 2 will be a monster as well.
Trying to go after the demographic that plays Helldivers 2 is like going after the demographic of Fortnite players. It’s a very oversaturated market and tough to break into. ARPG land is prime for the taking tho.
ARPG land is prime for taking because right now it’s a small genre dominated by devs stuck in the past. The minute a AAA studio makes a ARPG that allows for evergreen content, these other ARPGs will be left in the dust. The only question for me will be, which studio figures this out first. My guess is GGG because they seem the most willing to think outside the box and make a game that is still compelling.