While I don’t generally agree with @Chumo in most topics, I have to agree in principle here.
First this game isn’t failing to attract new players because of the expertise system. It’s hemorrhaging players because of the blunders that AGS has had with development. If you go back and line up all the game breaking bugs, exploits, merges, free transfers and “fixes/nerfs” put in place for the sake of PVP you will find an overwhelming correlation to the loss in players.
Generally the expeditions they releast, the mutators, and even the umbral shard introduction with gear score correlate to slowing the loss of players and/or improving growth in active players.
Arenas wasn’t even a blip on the map of the continued shrinking player numbers. If PVP was the savior for this game then Arena should of turned numbers around at least a little but, they didn’t even with an entire update dedicated just to PVP.
This game lacks a reason to play an alt for most people and it doesn’t allow alts on the same server naturally. That alone creates a lonely leveling experience for new players. You can’t expect a game plagued with issues to attract new players when the leveling experience from 1 to 60 is a grind and its a ghost town wheere its hard to find help with the process.
Once you hit 60 they have done a pretty good job of keeping content relevant even for people with higher gear scores with adding incentives to run chest runs on a daily basis. is it boring? Yes. But progression isn’t hindered and its not impossible to quickly catch up which was @Chumo’s point. There are many many roadways now and they all are exponentially better than they were when expertise was introduced.
That said expertise itself isn’t much different than farming multiple iterative teirs of content to get top teir gear to perform. Just like any other MMORPG. Where this falls flat is PVP where players are used to lobby/pub like PVP systems where you get a template you dont have gear progression and its just endless skill v skill of using the toolset. That isn’t what MMORPGs are about - its all about the power creep - facting those challenges and perservering despite them.
Expertise is just part of that. Earn your way to being elite or quite frankly just get better at the game because there are plenty of players that are low gear score rfolstomping bad 625 players. Happens in every game.
I dunno man, that’s the number one thing i get asked or see get asked about this game from previous players, is “is expertise still a thing” followed by “oh, ehh… ok nah”
as far as new players go, i’ve tried to talk the game up to plenty of people and explaining the progression system past 60 is always just a non starter. When they find out that the game requires you to grind the dungeons over and over, for stuff thats just going to be scrapped up until you are 600. THEN you start getting things you can use. It’s just a no go. There’s no way to sugar coat it as a system that feels good. It just doesn’t.
I mean it’s a dead horse at this point,
But the system just really doesn’t feel great, at least not the current iteration. It’s not that it’s too slow, i think it’s much better than it was. It’s just everything that comes with it, and the method of HOW we progress it needs to be addressed.
The fact that every drop that you get is doodoo, up until you get to 600 is something no one seems to want to address, or gloss over in every one of these arguments that i see crop up. It just feels bad, i dropped probably 100 smooth bone rings i had to scrap until i finally hit 600.
The way that they went about this from the getgo is just kind of wonky. Running the dungeon for guaranteed scrap, just to bump your GS and get a little bit of gold is something that they really need to address in my opinion.
But WHY add that extra time? They leveled to 60. And buying BiS takes hundreds of thousands of gold (i.e., no fresh 60 us getting amazing gear). If the gear system was as it should be (not stupid hard to get the 3-perk items you want to theory-craft your perfect build)… then I think the expertise system would be fine (with modifications… namely, for PvPers). But it’s not. Right now all expertise does is prevent people from playing.
Bottom line. If you want this game to succeed, and I am assuming you do, then you should be for removing expertise.
Simplest way to fix this is for faction vendors to have 590gs pvp gear. Why this isnt already a thing I dont know, there is literally no reason for the existing faction gear.
Obviously the devs thought players would spend more time in the 500-600 zone. Comments around the release of mutated dungeons support this too.
sounds like someone who’s really butthurt but this forum has seen this a lot too. For me these types with responses like that are of low intelligence or extremely smart and love to troll because they want to spend free time saying dumb crap knowing it’ll get a response…until that player responding to @Kosef takes to ignoring their comments or block them outright. Same with the game with these types, trolling drama mammas…
Its just not our jobs to moderate the forums. As much as I may want to sometimes.
So I started blocking people who were taking the fun out of the forums for me.
I live by the mantra of not feeding the trolls as much as possible. I am human and sometimes do but that’s why I started just blocking. More for my sanity.
That post wasn’t even addressed to me so why would I be butthurt. I just thought it was funny that someone tries to flex by suggesting someone think before posting like they are some well spoken intellectual, then posts a childish insult. But again I have no dog in that hunt.
You care because EVERYTHING in life should be a progress, you should earn your position with time not receive everything on the silver platter.
Mobas and fps games are not mmorpg.
Watermark gauged the players power level while showing a notable change through GS while. When obtaining a piece that was better it was a good feeling, and allowed players to chase after progression.
Expertise throws progression out the window forcing activities into a linear format. Completely randomizing the “Chance” for a better item into pitiful bumps for equipment that may not even be desired.
Under watermark a player at least could choose what the drop their looking to increase.
Under expertise a player has no choice, rather a gamble on whether the game will mercifully allow an increase to the desired equipment. Even the name “Expertise” is a backwards logic in which gaining experience with a weapon now becomes a casino.
If Expertise was a continuation beyond Level 20 for weapons, that would have been perfectly fine.
If Expertise was a continuation level for armor pieces (Light)(Medium)(Heavy) and jewelry that would have been perfectly fine.
To be fair, the guy he is arguing with is a whine ass troll that only posts to call people cry babies. Doesnt matter what the topic is about. If you see him posting he is calling someone crying.
We shouldn’t be focusing on casual players at the current state, no game should.
It is so sad to see mmos lowering the bar and lizard people saying “oh mate I have a life”, no you don’t, playing 10 other games as everything is so easy and then whinning because something needs more skill/time spent is not life, it’s an existence.
