Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
I mean if replayability is your main concern I really wouldn't worry too much my dude. The way the systems are being implemented some servers may not ever even get through all of the available raids or dungeons based off of server choices via upgrading certain nodes and whether or not certain questlines are successful. On top of that, if players do ever want to play some content that isnt available they then do more content through sieges which could or could not be successful the first time, and then having to upgrade other nodes to unlock new content once they do succeed in the siege. This also resets things for citizens of said node, causing them to have to rebuild. Another good thing for replayability is that since every server will be different, that means that youtube guides will be server specific, and the meta rush for information to complete content will not circulate as quickly as other MMO's, keeping content fresher because less people are figuring out certain raids and their mechanics. The entire games replayability is actually pretty astonishing in its current design when you look closely at it.
ULTRAKILL's demo is 15 minutes long, and I played it for 12 hours before early access began. There are no achievements, there are no stat grinds, no points or currencies to farm, no alts. It's just gameplay playtested to perfection. The act of playing itself is reward enough to continue, replaying the same levels over and over again. It's pure fun.
Finely tuned gameplay is fun in isolation; intrinsicly rewarding.
As soon as you add extrinsic rewards, the intrinsic ones are gone. And they don't come back if you remove the extrinsic ones. Passion becomes a job, and that change is irreversible. There's multiple studies on this phenomenon in children; where a group of kids that already express interest in an activity or toy have ultimately less interest in it if they are expressly rewarded for it versus those for whom no reward was mentioned or given at all.
Now, to read OP...
There's not much for me to say that hasn't been said already so I've only got 2 blips to blap:
Unexpected extrinsic rewards can prevent the conversion into a job, so those stat boosts for major achievements may work. As long as its hidden until achieved, it shouldn't ruin the intrinsic reward.
I hate achievements for the very reason they ruin the fun of a game. It's a tough hate to put into words, but my first half to this helps in that regard. They're extrinsic rewards. As soon as that pop up dings, whatever intrinsic awe and satisfaction I had is gone as I realize what I thought would be my own little secret is in fact a tourist attraction. Getting the dopamine hit of an achievement changes the goal of play from enjoying the experience to clearing a laundry list of chores. I play games for much longer when "100%" is not a concern. I disabled the Steam overlay just to get rid of achievement popups and find myself enjoying things significantly more than when I was notified of achievements.
I agree with your first bit on the perfecting things. But not everyone has that sort of mindset, and in fact not many do. That being said, however, your concerns about this sort of 'reward' becoming a 'list of chores' is certainly a scare for any player. But as seen by many many many games before (such as RuneScape's grinding), it becomes a niche in many people's interests.
My intent with this would certainly not want this to become a 'grind' and a 'chore'. Rather, its something that is rewarding the player for doing so by allowing progression in different aspects of the game; as well as a reward for doing so on one character. The point is also to be that this does not become overwhelmingly powerful. Skill certainly should be better and win out over small advantages; but said advantages would be liked by anyone who would rather invest dedication and work into growth by playing different content; rather then just grinding the same level over-and-over until you've reached that 12-hour perfectionist play-through.
That being said; as pvp has no similarities most of the time, and because the devs have promised RNG variability gameplay in PVE content, there is no way to get that 12-hour perfectionist play-through. And the devs have iterated on that they want it to be the dynamic way, where the game adjusts based on the party performance etc.
However, certainly rewards could remain hidden. Stating that the reward is an achievement / cosmetic reward; and at the end they receive a small boost (maybe hidden boost?). I would not disagree that this could be a great way to go.
Maybe even the reward for doing so, is that you gain a benefit in EXP gain rate, and a increased drop-rate from all monsters. This could also be seen as an advantage to dedicated work while still not disrupting any sort of achievable stats in-game.
However, the 'legendary gear' talked about from regional bosses is probably THAT much higher of a boost in terms of effectiveness that simply having a piece of that gear would make any sort of bonus from -rebirth- gains that you could never win anyway. I've had my fair share of games where the game was fun until you hit end-game where you realize that you have 20% effective gear as opposed to long-time-veterans and that all content was hard-locked until you spent the next 3 weeks grinding the same raid over-and-over-and-over until you get the pieces needed to make the gear that lets you hit 60% effectiveness that then you can enter another raid to continue rinse-and-repeat. Honestly such a game was boring very quickly to me (Neverwinter). It only lasted in the lvls between 1 and (max - 1). After that the game was just a chore and boring.
I would hate to see another game come down to 'this game is 95% end-game. The first lvls until cap is only 5%.' Then the game just becomes another distraction from work and thats all. You cannot get 'better' except to only obtain the end-game gear. That becomes the worst type of game IMO.
You are certainly correct that they have a lot of plans for replayability. But I'm concerned about replayability for multiple places of interest. I playa DDO (another game) that has included a very effective rebirth system. Now I agree that there is a lot of advantages to the power-creep in that, but I think it has made the game 10X more exciting for me, then just getting to end-game and repeating the same 30 raids over and over. Theres a limit to how fun that will be; and people just waiting for the next update for some new gear or new dungeons.
That game has successfully IMO implemented the reincarnation to benefit the game as a whole. New players or 'alts' always start out weaker in comparison than the veterans, but there is always a build that will completely stomp even the highest of the veterans, regardless of player equipment advantages.
To add to Margaret's words here, as the story progresses, you will most likely miss a lot of it if you spend your entire character time as the 'max level'. Even when you have friends that start or something, having to start a new character anyway most likely, you will probably find each time going 1-50 is quite different. Maybe people WANT to stay at cap forever, but not everyone does. This just would add some variety and increase game population levels from 1-49, so that not everyone is lvl 50 and anyone not lvl 50 just WANTS to be 50. You cannot start a new character EVERY time, because at some point you'll be deleting old characters to try something new? Why not encourage a way to do so without the deletion? Maybe incentivized? That's mostly what I'm advocating for. There are different ways to do it, and even as said before from others even, it could be very restricted in gain; or limited to cosmetics only.
But Steve has said before about encouraging different content as the game is played. But once you hit cap, that different content is likely very restricted to some degree. But there would be disadvantages / tradeoffs for 'reincarnating'. And that tradeoff is that you are temporarily level-locked out of doing a lot of things because you are a lower level again. Meaning that you have to experience leveling again. The same as if you had created a NEW alt.
To throw in a quote from Steve:
Focusing in here on the last little bit there... If there is no ladder of progression, everything is flat.
I agree completely here, because I've experienced it, and find 'flat' to be boring for me as a player.
Now, they have already methods to discourage that 'flat' by providing more and more difficult raid bosses / mechanics / fights / etc. etc...
As my idea with the reincarnation type of system; you provide another means to get that 'curve' progression. There is a drive, and a reward to have experienced it.
And this could very easily tie in to Steve's stream ideas about having kids 😂. or to some degree, they could be clones for future lives.