Borrowed powers are terrible to balance and feel terrible to lose. I want some permanence in the mechanical structure of my character. Give us interesting environmental mechanics to deal with and flat out content expansion as seasonal effects. This way you don’t squander the development effort going into this game seeing how it’s a skeleton game.
Don’t give me season of gimmicks and then delete it.
Give me season of “set items” and leave it in the game.
Give me season of tile set addition and leave it in the games.
Give me season of “stat squish” and leave it in the game.
I get that we’re getting season of “itemization” this time around, but I feel like they need to devote all the outlying efforts into “seasonally” fleshing the game out and stop developing temporary gimmicks.
Borrowed powers for Seasonal play is good. It allows the developers to expand the game as a whole while limiting potential problematic builds. I really don’t want to be set into a single playstyle only because we got nothing else to play with.
Uhm, the seasons are free too.
Nothing would differ in this regard.
Yeah, and nothing about that means “Temporary Gimmick content” instead of “Permanent improvement content”.
Adding new content is what matters for that model.
The seasons aren’t free. They are continuously funded by micro-transactions and the battle-pass. Interest in those two things is fueled by engagement with seasonal content.
What you want is base game content and improvements.
Those are done under the expansion model.
You buy Vessel of Hatred, poof, you’ve funded that development.
None of these would fall under a Seasonal Gimmick. They might come out during a particular season, just like the itemization fixes, Pits, Uber Bosses, etc. but they wouldn’t be the main gimmick of the season. D4 developers have proved that anything that fundamentally changes the game at the core level is added to both realms when a Season hits.
Seasonal ‘Gimmicks’ are just that, a gimmick that adds to the players experience during a particular season, but does not add core content or change the fundamentals of the base game. When Uber Bosses came out in S2 that wasn’t part of the gimmick for S2, it was additional content made for both realms. A way to target farm specific uniques and have a better chance at uber uniques.
So really what you should be asking for is just more content in general. Your ideal of seasonal gimmicks is way off if you think they would add sets one season just to take them away the next.
They are free for the individual player. You can pay the same, aka. nothing, no matter if a new season is only adding temporary gimmicks, or a revamped itemization system.
They are fueled by engagement with content. It does not have to be temporary gimmick content for that to happen.
There is no difference from a development perspective on doing “base game content” vs. doing “temporary gimmick content”. They have to spent time and money on making it regardless. And thus no difference in the funding of them either.
Look at what Helldivers is doing and the MASSIVE success they are experiencing. They literally have a live service game with a real time dungeon master. All the development in the game with battle passes is a permanent addition and improvement in the game.
The model that D4 is using is not only obsolete it’s horrifyingly inefficient.
The point seem to be that they should add sets, permanently, to the game during one season, instead of adding Blood Runes for a single season, or whatever
(and no, I dont think sets should EVER be added to the game)
Edit: And yes, adding something like sets to the game is presumably a much bigger change than adding Blood runes.
But it didn’t exactly have to be that size of additions each season.
Sometimes it can be new endgame bosses, new endgame activities etc. Like they are already adding now. Just add more of that kind of permanent content, instead of stuff that is gone again in 3 months.
That’s not how corporate finance works. Everything has it’s own bucket for the most part.
This is their first AAA game. They are trying to make a name for themselves, and likely operating at a loss in doing so. Who knows though, perhaps Johan Pilestedt’s approach will change the gaming market but for now, it’s an unproven experiment. We shall see how it works out over the next few years.
Going to assume you’re talking about S2 in that sense. Which was implemented similar to S1 with its jewelry, just more customizable. Neither of which should be implemented permanently to the game, but it’s ok to add parts of them as Unique items or Aspects like they’re doing now.
I also agree sets as we know them, either from D2 or D3 shouldn’t be added to the game. D2 sets were rarely used in the late game, yes I know some one is going to argue, “But there were 3 total sets I used!” yea my point exactly. D3 had ‘almost’ nothing but set builds. Again I expect someone to argue “I never played with sets!”, to which again I say, exactly point, a group of players does not a majority make.
In both cases they were implemented badly, and quite honestly I just don’t see how you would get away from either side of it. They would have to be attractive enough to want to use them over current options, but not so overpowered that you would feel compelled to use them over other options. It’d be hard to implement, not impossible, but definitely more trouble then it’d be worth.
Exactly my point, we’re in agreement. Was just stating their use of the term ‘seasonal gimmick’ didn’t really apply to the point they were trying to convey, which is just more content in general, has nothing to do with seasons. The OP wants more content not in the form of Seasonal Gimmicks, which they have been giving to us slowly.
Whilst I get your point @OP, I think it’s fine the way they’re doing it
After season ends about 10-15% of the “gimmicks” stay permanent, just enough to spice-up without necessarily taking over the “core” of the game
We have Malignant events and Malignant elites, and a Boss dropping certain “gimmicked” Rings as a result, and we have 6 aspects doing “gimmicks” that actually work (I’d argue a bit OP)
I’d argue/expect/suggest that we also may get some rare portals that lead to a Vault or two - again, same purpose, spice-up the game without necessarily completely taking over
Focusing on permanent-first while on paper is better, but does not guarantee success in practice. i.e. won’t necessarily show the trend/popularity/acceptance of new content/changes in the game
Point being ?, it’s a good move to have a “filter” to what works and what doesn’t, and have that work by experience and confirmed by playerbase/feedback of some sort
I could see some PTRs becoming a more common practice for testing/trying-out new “permanent stuff” in the future, we’ll see though…
Yes, and the season bucket could be permanent content instead of temporary gimmick content. Nothing about seasons require that the content is temporary gimmicks.
