Games with seasons, and other limited time game modes and rewards. They may as well just straight up advertise it as a load of content I'm going to pay for, but will never see the benefit of, because by the time I actually get around to playing it, the limited time content will be over, or I won't be able to dedicate enough time to it in a season to actually get the rewards at the end of a season.
I understand they're necessary in things like MMOs and subscription based games, but for games that might launch as a base game with an expansion or two, why then include a load of seasonal and time limited things that are only available to people playing right then?
I get that the point of these things is to drive player engagement in certain time windows, drive a community feeling and all that, but really, I just want my games to be the same if I bought them at launch, or if I go back to play it 3 years later. I'm not sure what the benefit is in people looking at older games and discovering that if they'd played it at launch, or in the first year, there was all this stuff going on, but it's not there now.
This is really more of a personal gripe I have though, and it comes down to a broader problem with how I approach games, and other aspects of my life. Because I know I don't have a huge amount of time to spend on games, I get very obsessed about playing games "optimally". I want to maximise what I can get out of it. If, as soon as I launch a 2 or 3 year old game, I discover that there's a load of content that's no longer available, or season exclusive items I can't get any more, it's immediately flagged in my mind as a game that's impossible to optimise, and I immediately start to feel negatively about it. There's content I've missed, and can never see, and it's too late to do anything about it. Not that I ever regularly play a game to completion anyway, but I always approach them like I absolutely have to, like eeking every last but of content out of something is the only way to justify even starting to spend time on it. It's why games with branching storylines, or RPGs that give you different ways to tackle problems and get different outcomes, stress me out so much, as well, because I know I can't play it without missing things. They're designed to be played multiple times, and give you different things to see and do each time, but because I know I'm probably not even going to finish the game once, let alone start again, I feel like I'm having stuff kept from me, and it just feels bad. There's probably a lot to unpack here, psychologically, but for the time being, I'm just going to complain on the Internet that time gated and seasonal content, which other people enjoy, is actually objectively bad.
Knoyleo wrote:This is really more of a personal gripe I have though, and it comes down to a broader problem with how I approach games, and other aspects of my life. Because I know I don't have a huge amount of time to spend on games, I get very obsessed about playing games "optimally". ... It's why games with branching storylines, or RPGs that give you different ways to tackle problems and get different outcomes, stress me out so much, as well, because I know I can't play it without missing things. They're designed to be played multiple times, and give you different things to see and do each time, but because I know I'm probably not even going to finish the game once, let alone start again, I feel like I'm having stuff kept from me, and it just feels bad.
While not feeling quite as strongly as you (or indeed at all) on the seasonal giveaway thing, this absolutely hits me when it comes to games intended for multiple playthroughs. In my case, it's more, 'Something else is going to have come along by that point, so I'm not going to want to play the same game again'; but the feeling that I'm unable to get everything in that time, and crucially everything material rather than seasonal items (which I tend to view as optional extras unless there's a good reason not to), is definitely something I get as well.
Dual wrote:I've never heard of rouge like. What is it?
Generally games with one-life runs through somewhat random levels. When you die you return to the start with no items you picked up, etc. You might be able to keep some form of experience to cash in for a permanent upgrade to make the next run slightly less painful in order to get further in. They focus less on level mastery and enemy placement and more on understanding of the basic mechanics of the game in order to do better than the last time. And raw dumb luck in what weapons drop or what rooms you find. Things like 'The Binding of Isaac' or 'Enter The Gungeon' are some of the better ones I've seen kicking around.
Dual wrote:I've never heard of rouge like. What is it?
Generally games with one-life runs through somewhat random levels. When you die you return to the start with no items you picked up, etc. You might be able to keep some form of experience to cash in for a permanent upgrade to make the next run slightly less painful in order to get further in. They focus less on level mastery and enemy placement and more on understanding of the basic mechanics of the game in order to do better than the last time. And raw dumb luck in what weapons drop or what rooms you find. Things like 'The Binding of Isaac' or 'Enter The Gungeon' are some of the better ones I've seen kicking around.
I thiiiiink that might have been a sarcastic comment on the misspelling. Can't be sure.
EDIT: Ignore, wrong!
Last edited by Balladeer on Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Knoyleo wrote:I'm not sure what the benefit is in people looking at older games and discovering that if they'd played it at launch, or in the first year, there was all this stuff going on, but it's not there now.
From the publisher's perspective you didn't fall into the hype and buy the game at launch so you may as well not exist to them. Plus most of the online games that have this kind of functionality will either be shut down completely, have their online modes disabled or be delisted from online stores within 5 years or to promote the sequel, which removes that as an issue in a short-sighted way.
Dual wrote:I've never heard of rouge like. What is it?
Generally games with one-life runs through somewhat random levels. When you die you return to the start with no items you picked up, etc. You might be able to keep some form of experience to cash in for a permanent upgrade to make the next run slightly less painful in order to get further in. They focus less on level mastery and enemy placement and more on understanding of the basic mechanics of the game in order to do better than the last time. And raw dumb luck in what weapons drop or what rooms you find. Things like 'The Binding of Isaac' or 'Enter The Gungeon' are some of the better ones I've seen kicking around.
OK thanks. Doesn't sound like something I would enjoy.