I think the word you’re searching for is “passion”. Arrowhead has passion and it shows. I also doubt they are operating at a loss as they have nearly doubled in size since release. They are an indie dev taking the AAA landscape by storm, don’t think this isn’t being noticed. This will revolutionize the live service model, anyone who has put a few hours into Helldivers 2 can attest to this.
Yeah, but Id also argue, that is how they should have been in the first place. Not taking completely over.
As for testing ideas, tbh, Blizzard should know better, as developers, than having to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
I do think the season gear they have released was implemented quite well. To say they have take nothing from seasons isnt really the case.
Overall they done a good job controlling some of the power creep. Mind you season 4 is just a massive power creep patch but overall its needed with the new systems that hit the eternal.
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I agree with this BUT, should have 4 types of people trying things out
1 - didn’t beat new content, does not know how damage and game mechanics in general, work
2 - does not know but beat the new content regardless
3 - knows how the game works but couldn’t quite beat it
4 - knows how the game works and beat the content (in a bunch of tries or first)
From 1st group should gather “hints” at what is not intuitive and how can be simplified for first use
From second group should gather info about difficulty uptake (or lack thereof)
From 3rd group should gather info about frustrating bits (CC, stucking spots, expected X to work better but doesn’t) and probably balance in general
From 4th group should gather info about generic improvements and general directions for the future but just as a consultation matter (not necessarily as TODO)
AND none of the groups should prevail in design decisions, those are done by a separate group that decide after hearing some thoughts of all 4
That’s not just devs, that’s QAs, “random” faux/gamers, random folk from the community, and pros
In fact, that’s a lot more than just “devs”, and in general - the more devs are “burdened” with testing/trying-out stuff, the less capacity of development overall
Now sure, one could argue experience “cuts down” the burden, but previous experiences (or even worse - expectations) bring in biases also
Well for example vaults are not something that could not remain in the game as a base line feature.
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I’ve already commented on this in other places. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Season stories should become secondary missions. Powers should be used in unique sets.
Create “season stamps” with 3 powers from our choice of 15 possible per example.x 15% attack speed 30% damage over time. In the other season they change to give a variety. A lot of money is spent on development and time, on powers that will be lost. There will still be bugs to be fixed… etc. This dynamic is a big mistake.
It should be S5 belt seasons. That’s right, another place of power. S6 PIT cursed. Now you have a frame that increases rewards and while choosing a curse that causes debuff. For example I have -15% on all resistances and -10 % total damage but I’m getting double GA items. That’s how I would like the seasons to be.
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Warframe is a game that’s been live service for the past 10 years. Digital Extreme has shown that horizontal progression can work for the long term. The VERY long term. Blizzards wants to be creative in their Seasons. At the same time they need to satisfy both players AND executives.
that’s not the season, that’s content that gets added along side the season.
we don’t know the season 4 theme and content yet.
all your “suggestions” are things that would get added alongside a season.
also noone would return to the game if your season is “new tilesets”
that has like zero draw, noone would be exited for no gameplay changes but now the background looks different.
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If they didn’t have seasons and only focused on core development, I think most of the player base would melt away. That’s essentially what happened to D3 until RoS and seasons came along.
If you want to argue that the game came out half baked I fully agree. It wasn’t even finished, let alone polished, but they did release it. Now that they have I would argue that they have little choice but to work on core development alongside seasons, because if they didn’t have seasons most of us would just quit until the expansion (and possibly not even come back for that given the trust issues their premature release has created).
Every season, the majority of every update to the game so far, like new items, aspects, skill changes, bosses, and balancing have come to eternal realm too and were just timed with the release or midpoint of a season.
The only seasonal stuff that didn’t hit eternal or stay were the seasonal quest lines, seasonal event, and the battle pass cosmetics. Right?
But even then, the seasonal quest lines weren’t really all that interesting compared to the campaign and side quests, and the battle passes were necessary to pay for the continuous “free” development between expansions… so the only thing that didnt really roll over were the temporary powers. And even then, they still added multiple back afterwards so far from S1 and S2.
The other stuff they’ve explained already was intentionally separated and not kept permanently so that they could have interesting temporary powers and systems without having to worry about breaking the eternal realm with them all adding in together. They also function as a form of PTR where they get feedback on what worked and didn’t work to help influence later development and permanent implementations.
So I get that it’s a little QQ why they didn’t just use those development resources to make only permanent content, but it’s already like 95% of everything is permanent, and honestly I’m okay with temporary seasonal powers and new systems because it kind of simultaneously lets us try the main changes and game with various filters and additional concepts that have impacts and meaning in development over time as we’ve already seen.
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Yes but, there could be an event here and there that when completed successfully opens a mini-vault, i.e. just the last 3 rooms 
Also, you wording with the double-negatives (not something that could not) is kinda confusing, not sure if you were pro or con 
Add goblins to the overworld (not Helltides!) who can spawn portals to various content; Vaults etc. With a large chunk of rewards that makes it worth hunting for them.
Make the overworld great again (well, not again, as it was not great the first time around).
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They should stay. They are just additional dungeons with a different mechanic. 
They should introduce a set in seasons, but put it behind the most powerful boss, hardcore only.
Season of the cursed!
What a mess that would be. But epic, guaranteed epic!
I think the better way to do this is to try it out for a season and let it take center stage, then see what works and what is cool and bring that stuff back to the base game as soon as you can, with better balance, better QoL, etc.
I do think they should focus on including progression systems and content types in what they bring forward. Bringing in the improved blood harvest for S4 helltides is great. Leaving malignant tunnels in the game would have been meaningless. They have brought forward content in the form of random events, too. Hopefully they will get more ambitious with the content additions in seasons, but so far those have all gone to Eternal at the same time, as they should (boss ladder, pit). Hopefully they will also work vaults into NMD drops by mid-S4 and eventually create an Atlas-style setup for NMDs / Pit / Helltide / Whispers that enables you to suppress or enhance different seasonal variants on these things and on the events within them.
The progression systems are a big loss, though. Instead of adding aspects with blood powers or uniques with malignant powers, I’d like to see them add alternatives that stem from a progression system. So you can imprint blood powers instead of codex powers, but they require you to level them up by collecting blood (and maybe ignore the sanguine circle bit or make it based on core stats). Bring malignant hearts back as new gems whose shards only come from special enemies. Bring back the seneschal, but you have to activate it by slotting governing stones into your glyph sockets, then activate minor stones by socketing them in your armor.
It is simpler to just push all these things into the codex / uniques, but it will be more fun to keep at least some modified version of the progression system as an alternative route to power. Since those systems would then compete with each other and with existing stuff, they wouldn’t add a never-ending list of chores to every build, but they would allow some builds to use some of them and other builds to use others.
i play both m8 eternal and seasonal and i always keep my seasonal when the season ends.
my god 
, again you…
Ignore is a wonderful thing
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I think they are taking notes from the community and when the expansion comes out we will see some of the best “gimmicks” stay permanent.
like right now, when the seasonal mechanics that were deemed cool make their way to eternal since s1?