Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by keerthiko 105 days ago
"I may play your game if you trim away a core appeal factor for the people who already play your game by splitting the active player base" is not that convincing a feature request to a gamedev.

Many live service games that are punishing for new players are still thriving like LoL and DOTA2. Much that punish-factor can be resolved by good matchmaking, putting new players mostly with each other.
2 comments
thewebguyd 105 days ago
Plus, not every game needs to appeal to every player, which I think is where games like that eventually have their downfall. WoW was talked about earlier in the thread, and Blizzard continuously trying to make it appeal to other types of players is what kept killing it.

It's OK for a game to exclude entire demographics of players. A PvP first game shouldn't try to force itself to appeal to PvE only players.

link
grim_io 105 days ago
I thought the core appeal was the loot that you get from the PvE.

But I'm just an interested outsider, waiting for the crashing player numbers for the devs to come to their senses.

link
bikelang 105 days ago
The loot itself is - quite literally - mostly trash. Sometimes you may find a high end weapon (although usually that comes from PvP…) - but typically you’re just bringing stuff back to put in your scrap hoard. The PvP is really the highlight - which is not to say it’s all about fighting to the death (certainly you can do that) but instead making friends with morally ambiguous strangers to fight the biggest robots. They may be a friend, they may be a jerk, they may be YOUR jerk. Sometimes the entire map will come together to take down a gigantic robot - but after that robot dies? It may be every man for himself in a huge firefight - or it might be a big party.

That’s the core draw - and it’s not necessarily for everyone.

link
bigyabai 105 days ago
There are much better games for PvE looting, honestly. My recommendation is the STALKER: Anomaly modpacks like EFP and GAMMA, both of which are free downloads.

Trying to make ARC Raiders into a PvE shooter would require every map and enemy to get reworked for low-population gameplay. The game just isn't built for it, and their effort is better invested in catering to the preexisting playerbase.

link