So where would you start?
You know what, I had a humongous wall of text typed out but I realized I can summarize it much better like this: I don’t know where I’d start because I would not have advocated for its release when it released. The game needed time, like another year of time, if they were going to stick to retooling it (which they shouldn’t have). Instead we have a game in ennui between the PVP and the themepark designs it’s had its hand in, and nothing is quite working the way it should.
If I start at zone tiers I have to look at crafting to give 60s less reason to be farming piles of iron so their incentives are in the higher zones more exclusively. If I do that I have to look at crafting all throughout its process to make sure A) experience is being given accordingly to reduce the need for the ‘10,000 gloves grind,’ while making sure we’re not overbalancing to turn the grind into a triviality it shouldn’t become and B) if I do that I probably have to ensure balance-wise that we haven’t slipped a Fire Staff in there that’s suddenly viable to craft and use for level 30 PVP in specific or something (IE twinking gear). We’ll want there to be a decent reward for PVPing, but if it’s too much people are just going to go right back to gaming the system anyway-- which will probably involve looking at territories. So we’ll probably have to also look at a lot of other systems by the wayside to ensure they aren’t becoming vectors to or from exploits. To say nothing of how balance can influence this, of course-- maybe Warhammers dominate early PVP, maybe Fire Staves fuck hard until level 50 or something. And that’s the kind of rabbit hole I see this as-- you pick up one issue, three more are attached by a string. Some are much smaller than others-- consumable strength comes to mind-- but leaving them unaddressed will likely cause problems down the line and that kind of decisonmaking has been a rather sour point from the get-go so if we can avoid that going forward… And I haven’t even brought up a loot system in all that. While I think one does belong, I think there are graceful ways to go around it and I think there can be a middle ground between ‘no loot’ and ‘full loot’ which might appeal to both sides.
But I don’t think there’s a good answer anymore. I think the answer is, ‘they shouldn’t have released when they did.’ Whether they’re boned for this or can recover, only time can tell.
Oh… and if I had anything to do with the team I think the level of communication would be much more candid. The level of corporate coverup going on with the team basically refusing to directly address the state of the declining playerbase is dashing peoples’ faith in them one-by-one, and it’s hella adding up. Doesn’t help that we’re still with the offshore CS as far as I know, who have no skin in a dying game when they pander out to League anyway. Why they’re involved is beyond me, they can basically only do harm to a game of this non-volume. Maybe that’s where I’d start: communication, openness, and a level of candid presentation that allows players to be just as candid back. If we hear in droves that an idea is fucking stupid, wellllllll…
So… yeah. There’s my rant. Believe me, the other wall of text was a regular Iron Curtain.
I’m at “forget approximately all that; remove leveling; restructure 60 crafts, and turn 1-59’s to skins; make world gameplay PvP-on and allow PvE grouping; make a few activities that are really lucrative in the open world; and make repairs expensive”.
They could do it in a month.
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Nooooo… normal devs with a track record of even modest success could do it in a month.
That said, I like the ideas there. Maybe if they weren’t just subscribing to the usual themepark grind they’d have more distinct visions for their game…
PS: There would need to be world activities; but that highlights the importance of fun, lucrative drops.
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