 | Season exclusives are hurting non season experience(1) | Category: GeneralApril-10-2015 11:47 AM PDT (10 years ago)  |
| TLDR: As an original mode player seasons are splitting my items, my builds and my friend list. Please consider at least letting exclusive items introduced on season to drop on the rest of the game modes after 2-4 weeks of season launch to keep original mode fresh and relevant or give nonseasonal players a sensible workaround the item exclusivity OCFTC: (other cool ideas from the community): I'd love the option to just port my character out of seasons whenever I want (which would be when I have the new items) so he doesn't have to be there all 4 months. What about creating a rather expensive kanai's cube recipe for seasons? that removes your item and sends it to your non seasonal tab, trascending the dimensions of the sanctuary Honorable thoughts in this thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16952155685?page=17#329 by TheTias http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16952155685?page=19#367 by Airen ========================================================== TSWREC (Too short want to read explained case) : I believe this has been debated before (an prolly for a good reason) as I also bet heavy debate occurs even internally on blizzard but I wanted to put togheter my thoughts on one comprehensive thread and just curious to see how other players react to my personal concerns, so I start with a community manager post about what season rewards its supposed to be. Not everyone may like chasing after new transmogs, getting a first go at new Legendary items, or competing on Seasonal Leaderboards, and that’s okay. We never want these rewards and activities to be so amazing that you feel you must play Seasons, though; they're meant more to be the icing rather than the cake itself. A quick player's response on Uliana's set seasonal capabilites vs non seasonal version : 4x more damage is not "an icing", it's the entire cake plus icing and extra toppings on top of that. NS are left with crumbs. I wish currently It were the case where seasons are just an alternative experience just as good as non season can be thus creating the diversity and choice, but I believe that statement is far from the reality and heres why: Philosophies behind seasons are all nice and dandy, but aside from the fresh start at the end of the day this new game mode translates in practical terms to a drastic change in the core game rules: seasons = get the most complete item pool VS non season = always have uncomplete item pool. Designers endeavour to improve the game diversity trough fun/powerful legendaries is frequently contradicting season exclusive items intent to not being the "cake" itself, not to mention that you are not only effectively splitting the item pool for several months but further divide the player base as well, sometimes I cant play with half of my friend list because they are torn between season or non season and it starts to get annoying to group up quickly to the point that even some people feel betrayed indirectly by their friends that actively choose to play a different mode that they may not be able to follow by different reasons. I think developers have to compromise more energetically with this issue, maybe season could have exclusive items for the first 3 weeks of season and then items roll on the non season pool and everyone wins (thats what Id like at least). Season get their characteristic and beloved "fresh start" incentive+ temporal exclusivity so they can meassure their efforts from scratch and original mode stays actually relevant, developers have to keep in mind too that this is also a character progression game and the mode they are protecting the least is the one where you have accumulated the most progression (the original mode!!) represented trough your pletora of items and XP collected since your D3 experience started. On that note a significant part of my original diablo 3 experience is the availability of the varied items I have accumulated since the game launched, even linking silly things like my favourite rare spirit stone called "Monk's Belief", or my rare boots called " The kicks" , or my rare gloves called "Powerful carriers" but more importantly than those shenanigans I have an extensive enough repertoire of items to try and adapt accordingly to the game objective Im playing and being able to easily switch out builds, elemental bonuses,primary/secondary affixes through different item versions its extremely valuable too. Not having available the complete set of items its hurting my non seasonal diablo 3 experience simply because at best Im missing new things to try and at worst my builds arent complete until season is over. Case in point, my raiment monk build wont be complete until I get season 3 spirit guards and meanwhile Ill have to suck it for X amount of months (wich in this kind of game that we sometimes play on a daily basis, it feels like relatively forever) and trust me this wait its no fun. So when the senior game designer shares an insight like this: Expect Season 3 to be at least 4 months long. I follow my opinion with this open question, Its not about the destination, its about the journey Then another open questions, The item experience specially its an essential & big component of the game and I believe it shouldnt be polarized like that and punished for nearly half a year for not choosing a specific mode. If they want to enhance the atractiveness of seasons, there are another game defining factors like customization, titles, achievements, experience, monsters, maps, and events they can come up with, if ALL of that paired up with a fresht start and the highly competitive environment isnt enough then season as a game mode shouldnt exist, its the fact they mess with item diversity in particular that really creates an offense to the game, to the original game mode and ultimately to you or me as diablo 3 players imo. Even if we can all agree these exclusive items arent that big of a deal then we should also be able to imagine a reverse scenario where the item exclusivity is non existant Don't complain that you don't get it sooner than later. You still get to have the meta of X season just a season delayed As Newskin mentioned, just the fact of delaying the items alone already impacts the experience of non season players as when they receive the season items it wont even be on the same context at all as seasonal ones, sometimes resulting in non seasonal not even enjoying the same metagame as its changed between patches and all of that resulting in a meaningless polarization of the diablo experience and effectively reducing the novelty and sense of coolness for seasonal items that get rolled on non season. I don't think this topic needs a thread.It's a simple choice,play season or don't play season. Play "optional" complete item pool or dont play "optional" complete item pool, cant make the issue any clearer than that. I think the meat and potatoes on this topic about choice, is that True choice exists when all options have equal value (or a relatively comparable one ) and on this kind of game item diversity really holds a lot of value by itself. When we introduce item exclusivity on seasons that alone creates a distorted illusion of choice between the game modes that holds a negative impact when choosing the non seasonal experience over the seasonal on the long run. In other words actively choosing nonseasonal mode holds less value right now in terms of the item diversity & coolness (one of the key components in the game) and for that reason its not an ideal true choice as you are simply missing out something really valuable, the diversity itself. The decision making isnt the deal here, the issue is why this problem was created by the devs on first place separating the item and player experience like that and affecting the experience of the original game mode among other things as a result. Just remember that not only players but developers can be wrong too at times and I think this is a perfectly valid case that may apply to a considerable amount of players, specially those that follow the original game mode. All in all, personally this whole situation actually saddens me to a great point and when reflecting about it makes me feel old timer players like me arent going to be supported as much anymore :( perhaps someday a smarter person than me will be able to make a better case (as some of my thoughts arent receiving much love), perhaps a developer reads this and can produce a healthy debate internally or perhaps its time to resign to the fact that my non season experience wont really matter anymore, but then again I constantly see game designers defending even the smallest of aspects like gold find as a choice, isnt it worth it to defend the quality experience of the whole original game mode as a choice? ======================================================== COOL IDEAS FROM THE COMMUNITY: I'd love the option to just port my character out of seasons whenever I want (which would be when I have the new items) so he doesn't have to be there all 4 months. ^ This particular idea would be very interesting to explore as it would be a perfect compromise between the 2 game modes (one in wich I see myself playing them both actively) and it could work as long as porting only works on 1 way and it succesfuly extracts the seasonal progress of the character completely to avoid item duplication issues of course. Maybe even if devs see it fit porting could have tighter rules like "You can only port one char in the whole season" or "You can only port once per month" All in all Id be fine for workarounds like this for the item exclusivity even if it required a little more work on the non seasonal players end. [quote][/quote] [Post edited six times, last edit by Colt#2370 at August-24-2015 10:15 AM PDT (9 years ago)] | ||
 | Season exclusives are hurting non season experience(176) | August-18-2015 4:09 PM PDT (9 years ago) |
As an original mode player seasons are splitting my items, my builds and my friend list. I must admit, the past couple days with everyone on my friends/clan list playing nonseasons was the most social i've been on the game since the start of season 2. It was nice. Played a bunch with people i've not played with since january. very fun. I was generally against the idea of seasons but did play season 2 and quite enjoy it. I don't think i'll be playing another however. Thanks for this Colt, Weirdbeard, Deuce and the rest. I'm still reading through the entire thread and collecting constructive feedback to pass to the dev team! I like how you gave such detailed info in your post, including what bothers you about Seasonal exclusive items and why you feel that way. In addition, I'd like to thank those who respectfully shared their thoughts on Seasonal rewards here and elsewhere. As a side note, we're also collecting feedback on the cosmetic rewards earned through the Season Journey interface starting in Season 4. I'm glad you and others are sharing your thoughts on this as we explore options for Seasonal rewards. It helps! :) | ||
