It won’t really because streamers have been a thing for ages now and the player base has been dwindling. The fact AoM sold way less than the base game is proof of that and i would bet the majority of people who bought AoM were already long time players.
If people already play PoE for maps and Diablo 3 for rifts which are the same thing with different names, why would they come to Grim Dawn for the same thing? SR won’t bring them to Grim Dawn because they already have those things in other games.
Not to mention that is been confirmed that SR is static maps that get picked in random order. There’s no random layouts. So people who like random layouts won’t like SR.
not sure how that answers my question, namely how you know the majority is grinding… if anything you just agreed that it is a small minority.
I agree that this small minority tends to stick around longer than the average player, but I am also still around and do not grind… Also, if you think Crate would work on an expansion because the maybe 3% of players that grind are still around and buy it, you have no idea what you are talking about
In the case of Path of Exile, this is the target audience who buy a lot of cosmetics, stash tabs, character slots, supporter packs for new leagues.
for PoE grinders are the target because they can sell stuff to them indefinitely. GD is bought once, whether you then grind endlessly or play through once.
Just because some game focuses on the grinders does not mean they all have to or that the grinders are a majority of ARPG players, it does however mean that they are a good audience to sell microtransactions to over a long time.
This still does not mean it is the majority of MTs, we have no way of knowing that…
No, the die-hard ARPG fans are not the majority of players, but the ones that Crate cares about, despite being a business and making money, of course.
I’d argue that those die hard players are not enough to have financed the first or second expansion. That does not mean Crate does not care about them, but they are not big enough an audience to cater to exclusively
I just wanted to point out that Diablo is not mainly about story (neither is Grim Dawn), thus most players play the game due to build diversity, replayability, character progression and slaying monsters, all in context of lore, of course. Story is just not THE aspect of this type of ARPG.
I don’t think anyone disagreed with that, I certainly do not
I would assume most of the currently playing players are that “5%” you keep talking about, as the last expansion was released quite some time ago.
it is safe to assume the % among current players is higher than 5%, but all of them ? I am not even sure it is the majority.
Not everyone buys the game right away, or gets around to playing it right away. Also, not everyone who plays now and has been playing for a long time is grinding, as you can see by the replies…
Crate says the game is still selling well considering how long ago it was released, so clearly some part of the active players is new
Just because players level many characters (myself included) to try out different builds does not mean they don’t want more/better endgame mechanics
agreed, the two are not mutually exclusive
As I have stated before, that 5% are the people who care about the game and will further support it, the “regulars” you could say. For those people, having more content on top of the maximum level would be great, that is why I love the announcement of the Shattering Realm.
this does not disprove my argument about the 5% and grinders being a small minority, it is making it
Of course it is a core mechanic, and very important for hunting loot and maximizing builds.
I guess we have a different understanding of core mechanic. If at most 5% of players do it, is that still a core mechanic ?
What do you think why the Crucible exists, or roguelike dungeons… ?
not sure why roguelike dungeons equal grinding
Or why does PoE have mapping? Because people enjoy taking their characters to the max
because the longer you can keep someone playing, the more likely it is you can sell MTs to them
Your argument is that it is merely for grabbing cash from players. It is a valid thing to consider, but not the only reason, since people enjoy the grind
if no one did, offering it would be pointless, but just because some are enjoying it does not mean the majority is or that it is a core mechanic
Implementing more endgame mechanics would also bring many new players in, as they are familiar with those systems from PoE and Diablo and enjoy those. Mapping is literally the main aspect of PoE, and look at how successful it is…
F2P is the main aspect of PoE, I have no statistics that say how many players do maps or are only playing it for them. Chances are that % is similar to the % of players having finished Ultimate in GD, same for rifts in D3.
I doubt more endgame mechanics over SR make a noticable difference in GD sales. Closed servers might, but even then I doubt the income from additional sales would exceed the development cost - by now this is pretty much impossible and I doubt it would have been profitable even when GD was new / shipped with them right away
if you see this as a discussion over which side is right, it is pointless. But that is not what ‘our’ side has been arguing for.
We are just pointing out that you cannot extrapolate from why and how you play GD to the rest of the players. That to me is worth pointing out as apparently some people just cannot fathom that
And the people who play PoE and D3 already have maps and rifts in those games, why would they come to Grim Dawn for the thing they already have?
I remember from when AOM came out that a lot of the more well known POE streamers started streaming it, also because they were in between leagues, if memory serves me right…
all those streamers voiced pretty much the same opinions, that they thought both games were pretty much on par when it came to giving them general ratings, but also that Grim Dawn has a deeper character development, enabling a greater build diversity
a con of Grim Dawn they voiced was the lack of “an endgame”, because indeed they mostly stream POE’s map system
so, SR coming out might make Grim Dawn more interesting for such players
I would assume most of the currently playing players are that “5%” you keep talking about, as the last expansion was released quite some time ago
do you realize you’re having a discussion with players in that 5% range?
back to the topic at hand.
like I said, I pretty much have the cake and eat it too
lore notes are loot, plain and simple
the A in ARPG comes first, for me as well, but let’s not forget the RPG part…
Thank you for making my point. “Our” side means there has to be a “their” side in there too. And there isn’t. It’s all just “us”, all of us - the 5%, 20%, 53%, 87%, 100% of “us” - enjoying the same game in different ways.
well, there are two sides in this argument, the ones that say ‘grind is the main purpose of ARPGs and anyone not grinding is playing it wrong / not understanding the genre’ and the ones that say ‘you may enjoy grind, I do not, and there is no need for you to tell me how I should be playing / enjoying the game’
It’s all just “us”, all of us - the 5%, 20%, 53%, 87%, 100% of “us” - enjoying the same game in different ways.
both sides enjoy the game, they just happen to enjoy it for different reasons, which somehow is something the first side seems to not be able to comprehend
You have to remember Now a days Everyone thinks their opinion is a fact and not an actual opinion. That if you disagree with them, then you are clearly the 1 who is wrong.
Personally I’m in the real minority as I hate grinding and I have no clue what grim dawns story is aboot. I play the game as I enjoy the character progression and combat.
Same with path of exile, tho with Poe I’ll never actually reach level 100 as the character progression slows to a crawl. so I just star a new character when I get bored of the lack of progression.
You are constantly bringing up money. Money, money money. To understand my perspective, look at me as a game developer, because I am one. An indie game developer who does not live off the money he makes from his games, at least not yet.
I am passionate about game development, and I simply state that for me, endgame mechanics are core to an ARPG. I like developing them, I like playing them. You just have a different opinion about that, and it’s fine. I don’t really want to spend any more time discussing this topic, as it is indeed pointless, as someone has mentioned.
I do not extrapolate my view on the whole playerbase, I just make the assumption that PoE is about the grind (mapping), and I would like a similar mechanic in Grim Dawn. Crucible and roguelike dungeons do that for you already. It just happens to be my view by accident
I don’t understand why you don’t understand that roguelike dungeons are grindy. It is essentially a dungeon - even with the same layout every time - that you get loot for when you complete it. To get certain legendaries for builds, you have to run them over and over again, or go to Crucible.
Nobody ever said here that their opinion is a fact. We don’t have full statistics on everything for Grim Dawn, PoE or other games. We are merely having a discussion on what we think is most important in an ARPG, or what people enjoy the most.
My dude, if you want to quote me, then do it correctly… My opinion is that killing monsters to get better loot is the main part of an ARPG, which you agreed to if I remember correctly… And I was never saying people play it wrong if they don’t grind… I said it is a core part of the genre. :furious:
I only brought it up in the reply to that. That being said, making smart business decisions, which this is ultimately about, is not a bad thing.
To understand my perspective, look at me as a game developer, because I am one. An indie game developer who does not live off the money he makes from his games, at least not yet.
I am a developer, not a game developer. From a personal perspective I can understand doing something out of passion even if you never recover your investment, but from a business perspective I have limited understanding for that.
If your intention is to make a living off selling games, then making enough money from your games is essential. You can invest more than you earn for a while to get name recognition etc., but in the long run this is not viable.
I am passionate about game development, and I simply state that for me, endgame mechanics are core to an ARPG. I like developing them, I like playing them. You just have a different opinion about that, and it’s fine. I don’t really want to spend any more time discussing this topic, as it is indeed pointless, as someone has mentioned.
I am not trying to convince you that you are wrong, we just play for different reasons
I do not extrapolate my view on the whole playerbase, I just make the assumption that PoE is about the grind (mapping), and I would like a similar mechanic in Grim Dawn. Crucible and roguelike dungeons do that for you already. It just happens to be my view by accident
I already mentioned why it is more important for PoE to have this than for GD (microtransactions). I am also not arguing against the inclusion of SR, I am just saying it is of limited interest to me
I don’t understand why you don’t understand that roguelike dungeons are grindy. It is essentially a dungeon - even with the same layout every time - that you get loot for when you complete it.
because that is exactly the same way for the rest of the game. The game, incl. rogue dungeons, is as grindy as you want it to be, they are not more grindy by nature.
Forget all this childish squabbling, I think the best direction ARPGs can take is finally getting away from static difficulty settings that make you reply the game over and over. In my opinion it offers no benefit besides lazy difficulty scaling that really only results in artificial difficulty via penalized player stats and inflated monster stats.
Well, i would argue, if i look at the longlivety of Hack’n’Slay, i mean look at Diablo 2 people played it for 12 Years, than the major aspect which keeps the People going, is the Gameplay as well the Grind for Gear. Story / Lore is something which most HnS have only as execuse to have one, compared to real RPGs they are often way behind.
Diablo 3 with it’s great Storytelling(though Diablo in general also had an neat lore, but was never that flashed out), Grim Dawn with it’s great more fleshed out lore Lore and also Van Helsing were nice too, are the only three Hack’N’Slay which if you ask me, have somewhat of good Story and Lore, and this are only recent games… and even there i would argue the majority of people who play it for the lore / story are the minority… the huge majority of the playerbase play it for the Gameplay / Grind / Build Characters…
Also the “Clicker Argument” is wonky too. It’s like if someone plays need for speed for racing instead of Story and you would recommend them some cheap lowbudget smartphone racing game… Grim Dawn have way more substance gameplaywise which why Grinding is fun to begin with…
those playing for 10+ years certainly are in it for the grind, but we are talking about a fraction of the original players here. I am not saying that no one likes that, I was arguing against this being why pretty much anyone would play ARPGs.
Diablo 3 with it’s great Storytelling
it’s what now ? it is pretty much consensus that D3’s story is awful
Also the “Clicker Argument” is wonky too.
oh, I know it is a bit off, I can see why someone would be ok with the mindless grind part of D3. It’s not me, but I can see why it might be enough for some people.
I cannot understand why anyone would play something like Klicker Heroes (maybe someone who does can explain that )
But to me rifts / maps are almost as boring and mindless as something like KH, hence the ‘basically’
