Anyway, we get the point, clearly there is not NO profit in catering to the most hardcore 5%. There is SOME profit, a small amount which, if it is pursued by a small number of companies like From and CCP, can make those companies comfortably successful. But I don't think that really changes Demonmonger's original point.
My heart bleeds for you Sushifrukt. Those nine furnace drops and 120 hours of gameplay in a month certainly sounds like a tough life.
It sounds like you are not enjoying the game anymore which I totally get. I recently terminated my WoW subscription, as I found myself not deriving much satisfaction while playing. This doesn't mean I won't ever play again but sometimes a nice break does a gamer good.
In most aspects I agree with Bagstone's post. People will or will not play seasons. Therefore I don't see the season only legendaries as a 'carrot' for playing seasons
From a player point of view I see it as a 2 tier economy where season players are 'rewarded' with access to new stuff.
However, I play seasons because I'm competitive by nature and an even playing field lets me test myself against like minded season playing folk. I even took it to a different level by playing seasons in hardcore because I believe the player pool is smaller. I can even profit from other players deaths as this forces an item/gem reset for them. Its a risk to me too but one I'm willing to face.
I could also do this from non-season but due to my work & life commitments I can't play as often as I once could. So HC seasons gives me the illusion I need. The new legendaries don't influence my decision in any way. As I always play the same class(es) the roll over lets me upgrade my main and spare non-season characters, should I wish to play them.
Although when I thought about it more I considered the 'gated' legendaries to be a clever design and testing aspect for blizzard. This is because patches aren't released until they're ready however PTR testing can be relatively short and to a small part of the community. Some of the new legendaries can potentially be game changing so to introduce them to a controlled open environment like seasons allows blizzard to watch, monitor and if required, modify theses items before general release to the wider population. I'd like to think this is the case but if it isn't then maybe they should re-think their policy on season only legendaries and gems as it does seem quite pointless.
Oh Oh, I know how about create a valid reason for seasons (such as resetting the trade market once it gets flooded to give people a new start) rather than simply creating fake incentives (season-only gear) to make people play a mode they don't actually want to play? Cor, that would be great.
Seasons were just a cheap grab at the nostalgia-ridden D2 players who refused to buy the game until it had ladders. With 0 trading, pvp and player-interaction seasons serve no actual point. The game doesn't need to create more false incentives to force people to play seasons, it needs to improve the loot curve open up more of the game to viable farming levels, create more group content like chaos/baal/cows etc., re-allow trading and make pvp open-world. Then, i'll play seasons.
On the "casual" point, the idea that Diablo 2 was a hard game makes me laugh, WoWs high-end raid content has never been harder and have u even seen what the people do in high-end competitive Starcraft I could barely click randomly that fast! So yeah, wut?
Loot curve - remember when ure body armor would go rare > random unique > ghost shroud > vmagi > skulders > tal armor > CoH (tal set still useful to!) where as now it goes rare > random uniq > ik armor the game needs that. This is done by 2 methods -
1. Having more goals than just hitting harder, i.e. MF/GF the benefit of stats like MF/GF is you can make these items more common because they don't make you a god meaning that both the more common MF/GF and ultra-rare damage gear can exist in the same game and both be considered worth while and BiS for certain builds. Keeping all existing items viable in there own right by making more options than just hitting harder is important to make a good loot curve and trading work.
2. Having more than 1 way to farm, different builds do different runs faster and this creates build variety, build variety means more of the gear becomes viable... build a will do boss runs faster, build b will do rifts faster, build c bounties, build d campaign runs etc... The thing that annoys me most on this point is the content already exists to do this they just need to balance the drop rates!
Anyway, we get the point, clearly there is not NO profit in catering to the most hardcore 5%. There is SOME profit, a small amount which, if it is pursued by a small number of companies like From and CCP, can make those companies comfortably successful. But I don't think that really changes Demonmonger's original point.
My heart bleeds for you Sushifrukt. Those nine furnace drops and 120 hours of gameplay in a month certainly sounds like a tough life.
It sounds like you are not enjoying the game anymore which I totally get. I recently terminated my WoW subscription, as I found myself not deriving much satisfaction while playing. This doesn't mean I won't ever play again but sometimes a nice break does a gamer good.
=^..^=
In most aspects I agree with Bagstone's post. People will or will not play seasons. Therefore I don't see the season only legendaries as a 'carrot' for playing seasons
From a player point of view I see it as a 2 tier economy where season players are 'rewarded' with access to new stuff.
However, I play seasons because I'm competitive by nature and an even playing field lets me test myself against like minded season playing folk. I even took it to a different level by playing seasons in hardcore because I believe the player pool is smaller. I can even profit from other players deaths as this forces an item/gem reset for them. Its a risk to me too but one I'm willing to face.
I could also do this from non-season but due to my work & life commitments I can't play as often as I once could. So HC seasons gives me the illusion I need. The new legendaries don't influence my decision in any way. As I always play the same class(es) the roll over lets me upgrade my main and spare non-season characters, should I wish to play them.
Although when I thought about it more I considered the 'gated' legendaries to be a clever design and testing aspect for blizzard. This is because patches aren't released until they're ready however PTR testing can be relatively short and to a small part of the community. Some of the new legendaries can potentially be game changing so to introduce them to a controlled open environment like seasons allows blizzard to watch, monitor and if required, modify theses items before general release to the wider population. I'd like to think this is the case but if it isn't then maybe they should re-think their policy on season only legendaries and gems as it does seem quite pointless.
Oh Oh, I know how about create a valid reason for seasons (such as resetting the trade market once it gets flooded to give people a new start) rather than simply creating fake incentives (season-only gear) to make people play a mode they don't actually want to play? Cor, that would be great.
Seasons were just a cheap grab at the nostalgia-ridden D2 players who refused to buy the game until it had ladders. With 0 trading, pvp and player-interaction seasons serve no actual point. The game doesn't need to create more false incentives to force people to play seasons, it needs to improve the loot curve open up more of the game to viable farming levels, create more group content like chaos/baal/cows etc., re-allow trading and make pvp open-world. Then, i'll play seasons.
On the "casual" point, the idea that Diablo 2 was a hard game makes me laugh, WoWs high-end raid content has never been harder and have u even seen what the people do in high-end competitive Starcraft I could barely click randomly that fast! So yeah, wut?
Loot curve - remember when ure body armor would go rare > random unique > ghost shroud > vmagi > skulders > tal armor > CoH (tal set still useful to!) where as now it goes rare > random uniq > ik armor the game needs that. This is done by 2 methods -
1. Having more goals than just hitting harder, i.e. MF/GF the benefit of stats like MF/GF is you can make these items more common because they don't make you a god meaning that both the more common MF/GF and ultra-rare damage gear can exist in the same game and both be considered worth while and BiS for certain builds. Keeping all existing items viable in there own right by making more options than just hitting harder is important to make a good loot curve and trading work.
2. Having more than 1 way to farm, different builds do different runs faster and this creates build variety, build variety means more of the gear becomes viable... build a will do boss runs faster, build b will do rifts faster, build c bounties, build d campaign runs etc... The thing that annoys me most on this point is the content already exists to do this they just need to balance the drop rates!