Well, I don’t think early transparency is necessarily a good thing as it can make it hard for developers to change course. A lot of the problems EHG has had with Last Epoch are down to that, imo.
Have you seen Medierra’s interview with Chris Wilson? He gives a few hints as to his thinking.
Yes i saw it. What i mean about transparency is, let’s say Crate say Grim Dawn 2 will be online-only, so what is there to change, they will just cook and improve on that idea.
General community backlash would require some pretty severe inclusion/exclusion of content/features for GD2, especially given that the GD community seems relatively mature (most of the time) relative to other ARPG communities. Probably since many of us are holdovers from Titan Quest, which is nearly 20 years old at this point.
I think not having an offline mode would be pretty damning, but not having an offline mode is not the same as having an online mode. I somewhat expect Crate will at least try to make an online GD2 experience, even if I myself have little interest in it. Even so, I also expect Crate will still include an offline version regardless of their success with online development - I think they’ve seen enough of their community’s sentiment as well as the success of the modding scene to convince them to keep offline gaming a valid way to play.
I don’t think MTXs are necessarily backlash-worthy. Not in today’s day and age. And, hell - we have people literally begging for more Loyalist Pack cosmetics. (I’m people) I think a more streamlined cosmetic → support devs pipeline wouldn’t cause an uproar.
Frankly, I would be disappointed in Crate if they kept with the same class structure that they have now. Which is not to say the current structure is bad - it’s probably my favorite in-genre. But personally I am surprised ‘classes’ have survived in this genre for as long as they have. I don’t think this is backlash-worthy either, though.
Taking Crate as a company out of my following statement:
Sequels are not always good. Nor do they mean that everyone is going to jump ship to the next game.
My subjective take: I have been on the side of no sequel. I don’t see it as being necessary. What a game looks like isn’t as important to what it can do and it’s play experience.
I’ll site a game on Steam called Dark Hunting Grounds. Black/white/gray pixels with a few colors thrown in. But there is simple yet good enough complexity to keep the game interesting and fun despite looking like something that was from the Atari 2600 days.
There is so much more that could be done with GD that wouldn’t stress an already over utilized engine IMO. Nor do you have to slam power creep over and over.
Comes down to things Crate wants to do but really can’t with the current engine. At this point it looks like I’ll play FoA until done and mod after because live service games are just mostly bad.
Zantai already responded to this with the fitting answer, but this is a complete nightmare to balance. Just a character having three, big stackable resistance reduction sources from the masteries alone sounds like a recipe for some busted stuff.
And good luck naming the class combos, that’s honestly the worst part.
This ^ is horrible imho. I used to think it was cool, but it’s not. I like my games to have a sense of purpose and give me a direction. I don’t find it enjoyable to wander around for hours (aimlessly).
I don’t mind if it’s a bit more broad/open than it is now, but most areas area already wide enough to take multiple paths and ‘get lost’
I think it’s better for games to focus on their strenghts as well rather than try and do a bit of everything.
