This is something I've been wondering about for a while. When The Shattered Warpgate first launched I was unable to play the game, but was very interested in the campaign aspect. RPG's are my main kind of game, and so anytime more story is being added I am interested. Unfortunately, much to my chagrin, when I did log in to play the campaign I found that the first chapter had 'ended' and was no longer available. It was my understanding that game developers, in general, never have enough time, money or resources to make the content they want/plan to make. So my question is: what is the logic/reasoning behind creating disposable, limited-time content. That would be similar to making Bastions (as an example), having then in the game for a month, then removing them forever... a lot of work for not a lot use. I can't imagine this is a good use of resources :s. Also, why would I (or anyone) want to participate in a campaign after having missed the first part (or two parts as it is at the time of writing)... that's like starting a book half way through. Or buying a book and then someone comes along and takes it away after an arbitrary amount of time before you even finished it. Presumably when the next 'campaign' is added it will build on the first one at least in some ways, but anyone that didn't play it won't have half a clue...Would this not also be a negative for new players: seeing there is a campaign then logging into the game and finding they can't do half of it. As I said, I do not understand the logic behind this decision, unless R.P.G. has more time, money and resources than most developers and they can afford to make disposable content? And even if that were the case, it's a negative on the game experience for the other reasons I mentioned. It had been my intention to re-up my sub, I know it's not required for the campaign, but I'm happy to support games I enjoy when I am able. But seeing that I'd missed chapter one, I saw no reason to bother with the campaign and would not wish to support this practice. And before anyone says it, I know my one lack of a sub isn't that big of a deal to them lol. Maybe I am mistaken or have missed something somewhere, I hope so, or at least that perhaps the campaign content will be added in a permanent form soon. Thank you kindly.
Not sure If I have the answer. Some thoughts: The hard work was putting the systems in place for the new campaign stuff. Like actually designing a "foster" character to give out missions., A menu to track progress, in-game entities to interact with etc.. I think the idea is once you sink money into these systems you can then make future content fairly easily with it. It's OK for the content itself to be somewhat disposable if you can make more of it cheaply. I don't think you'll get that first campaign you missed back. To sooth your loss let me tell you it kinda sucked. Wrel and crew were trying something new and while they got some stuff right they blew it in a lot of places. Lessons are learned though so the future content that you will have access to should be better. Also the Condensation ammo/grenade rewards: I believe those were temporary/disposable for a different reason. Play feedback was a big blinking red light on those. Really unsure if that ammo will mess up game balance. And it's not a thing easily rebalanced once permanently introduced. So I think they just temporarily introduced it as somewhat of a safety measure.
Pretty sure it was also to test what new mechanics players will allow; those that don't have negative community impact/feedback can be kept at the end of the campaign, the rest removed after the chapter.
Yeah it kinda pissed me off. Especially since this was kinda kept quiet until everyone bought the disposable items
I have been complaining about this since day one where I noticed the deletion warnings on EVERYTHING. The reclaiming vehicle aspect? That's awesome and in no way game-breaking. It gives Esamir much needed flair to set it out from the other three continents. There's no reason that shouldn't stay. The crystal mining makes a good daily, better than we started with anyway... And so on. Everything we got deserves to stay The problem is when the community has a stroke and flips out about something that's nowhere near as bad as it is; casepoint the ice grenades. The absolute hysteria that started over them, acting like they'd completely ruin the game for every man, woman and child. Now, how often do you actually see people using them five months in? It's the -exact- same thing that happened when the tranquility was added, people acted like it was going to usher in the thousand years of darkness... Excapt it didn't. The grenades have a niche and deserve to stay, but it's unlikely because of the drama the playerbase stired up...
Not that I don't agree with what you posted just like to point out that: It actually did receive a nerf, and it is still cancerous af. ESFs a2g, spur libs, hesh tanks on hills are all cancerous and receive constant complaints but you don't see them everywhere either. In the same vein, firestorm wasn't game-breaking, but it also introduced a mechanic that most players just didn't want to see in the game, same for tranq and those nades.
The nerf was extreme light-handed and hardly changed the gun at all. And the problem with the grenades is people were overstating just how much they effected gameplay, making it sound way worse than what it actually is. Firestorm isn't the best example and why I didn't use it. Because it -could've- actually changed gameplay, significantly. That's why it was changed three times over. Because it did give an intense powerspike that people couldn't really stop or counter.
Let me see if I catch your logic here. The things that DON'T EXIST NOW aren't causing problems therefore they were never going to cause problems. Fascinating.
Direct damage from 280at75m - 250at150m to 280at15m - 225at150m Slow on hit no longer stacks with other Tranquility users, or with Concussion Grenades. That's some pretty big nerfs. Either way, it's still a mechanic that very few people want in the game, regardless of how underused or technically balanced it is. I'm not really sure what the logic behind not thinking why Firestorm and Condensate grenades are very similar is. Both affect direct DPS, both have conditions. Even when firestorm was released, the people that unlocked it barely used it after trying it out. Still deserved to be deleted because it was a mechanic people didn't want.
Edit: Bad math.I thought it was still 2 shot at any range. My apologies. It was a fair nerf, but that applies to the damage, something every weapon can do. At medium ranges it still feels exactly as it did before. If you're tagging people for status damage is irrelevant. The status effect was not just limited to the Tranquility as the Concussion grenades got fixed in the same patch about status stacking. It wasn't a huge nerf. My point is that it should be there as an option. In your quote Is that justification alone for anything -anyone- agrees with to be just removed from the game at any time for any reason? What happened to this 'adapt to combat' stuff that get thrown around a lot when used to defend nearly everything else? Why can't that apply here? The Tranquiltiy is here. The game still functions. The ice gear is here, and the game continues to function. Removing it does nothing but to remove an option for players at this point. (I'd also like to point out that I haven't even seen anyone complain about the ice gear since maybe the third week of chapter 1, in-game or out. I honestly think people compeletely forgot about it and moved on)
This hurt more when it was released, because there were more people using it. It wasn't uncommon to be hit by two tranqs multiple times in a base. Another question to ask is why it is no longer really being used, when it was and still is deemed to be very strong, even if only in a support role. This leads into the next point: It was more to point out that even when mechanics are cancerous, or are agreed to be strong/broken/annoying, that doesn't mean that the majority of people will use it. Claiming that these mechanics aren't any of the above because they aren't used much is what I was trying to dissuade you from. The other point that might also be relevant is that the campaign gear requires you to play the campaign to get points. I, for one, never touched it past the first few missions.
Disregarding current topic, at least you remained civil, which is more than can be said for most of the community as a whole. Don't take this back and fourth as a lack of appriciation of that fact. Ontopic again, where does the line stop however? -any- mechanic can frustrate someone. As well as the temperament of the player in question. This leads to rampant echo-chambering. When I get hit with a Tranq round I don't start screeching about Wrel ruining the game. I try to assess the situation and work around it. But other players do lash out violently. I've been hit by both BEC and condensate grenades and never once did I think -they- were the reason I screwed up. I personally enjoy getting hit with something different, it causes me to have to react differently, assuming there's some form of counter, which both Tranquilities and ice gear have. Personally I find having to flashlight an entire base from top to bottom to get rid of a single stalker more aggrivating then getting hit with a minor debuff. - I'm adamant that this game's community is just as much of a hinderance to itself. For as much elitism as the people put off, they act like children, constantly. I understand something being frustrating, but this was something so minute made into a big deal because of the 'what if's', and has negative consequences for new content. Inovation will stagnate.
Well I definitely agree with you about the story. Considering there are so many bugs that prevent you from completing the missions. I cannot make any progress with the Elysium Crystal mission to this day. I wish they unlocked the story too. I want sift through regardless of if you complete it so those of us who could not do them can read it. To answer your question, my first thought is Data Space. This game is HUGE. And very smooth when it come to travel. There are no load times between zones and you can be dealing with a few hundred people on an island at a time. A lot of games add content and let it stay. As a result the game slows down because they are overloading your system. It has always made since to me to go on ahead and have limited time content with keep-able rewards, that way you minimize buildup and can also force your clients into a "GET NOW OR LOSE IT FOREVER" mentality. This drums up loyalty to your game, because the player has to play to get the non buy-able items, while drumming up sales, because people will buy what they need to help them achieve their goal. I AM available for hire! I will even accept 20% lowered pay... for a little while. Hahaha!
On the flip side of that, at what point would you look at a mechanic, then? If you pass it all off as a slippery slope, or ignore what a large/majority of the game's population wants, then you would be doing just the opposite. If people were actually using them, they would be a big deal though. Why people aren't using them is a bit of a ? but as I was saying before, there are cheesey, strong, annoying, broken, etc., mechanics in the game even before the Tranq/Ice gear, and they also aren't pulled or used constantly by everyone. Like i've never even seen the new nade used once, and at worst it is comparably strong to a conq, and conqs are used pretty often.
I've used them both a fair amount. The BEC more than the Condensate grenades I'll admit. The only real use I found for the BEC rounds besides just being utility of hitting people trying to run, is they're great for taking out infil's. If you hit one while cloaked, they'll get a frost outline regardless of cloak status. And if you can direct hit you can actually kill with them. But normal combat they're virtually useless. The condensate grenades, on paper are comparable to Concussion. Practice, they're not. Having a slightly slower rate of fire doesn't really compare to having aiming hampered with. The only time I can safely say that I secured a kill with one was a TR max that just started reloading when the grenade went off. The lengthened cooldown is what let a few squadmates rush it. And the blast radius is fairly small, or at least feels it. The argument that you could chuck one into a defended point and rush the defenders helpless is just fantasy. You could get one or two people at best due to size and placement. The grenades themselves feel way more 'bouncy' than concussion grenades, but that could just be me. I can never get them to go quite where I wanted them, and I'm fairly competent with the other types. I'd personally rather be hit by Condensate over concussion. At least I can fight back reliably still.
Don't worry man, you didn't miss much. It's not a good RPG campaign, because this game doesn't have RPG elements. It doesn't have characters, significant stakes or the potential for a satisfying conclusion. Honestly, spending game resources on the campaign is a smaller scale version of PSA. Money getting flushed, thank you for your sub.
Thank you to everyone for their thoughts. Unfortunately it seems to me that we don't know the 'real' reason, and a dev has not responded. More than that it seems it's slightly worse than i thought... there were rewards that expired even after you claimed them? That is appalling and has a very 'cheap mobile game' feel. The proposal that it's 'to test new content' I'm not sure I agree with. They could've then made an event, like the Christmas event, something time limited, a few simple rewards, but not advertized as a campaign, and not tied to story that literally blew up a warp gate and changed an entire continent. I can't agree that the argument is 'we need disk space or our game will slow down'. There are many games, older than PS2 even, that have been adding more and more content and it doesn't slow the game, in fact things can be more optimized over time. Games on consoles (looking at you Destiny) seemed to have started this idea in peoples heads that ''we need to remove content you paid for/worked for because of disk space or performance''. This doesn't apply to PS2 because there aren't that many assets (relative to other similar games). A lot of stuff is reused, like buildings for instance, set out differently in a different environment (and it makes sens they all look the same because they are made by NS (Which I've no doubt was created so they could make one of a thing, instead of three of a thing.. e.g. three faction themed Bastions, which would've been awesome!)). And as i said as optimization improves so does performance. Additionally the argument that ""GET NOW OR LOSE IT FOREVER" will create loyalty in your customer base, i would say is the EXACT opposite. Games that do this create hostility towards the customer base, and before long everything becomes 'get it now or its gone'. It's good for a 'quick buck' but over time will cause people to get tired, burnt out and ultimately leave. Not everyone, sure, but I think many. Certainly if PS2 went down the path of expanding this ''get it before it's gone'' concept, i'd be done. My fear is that is step one towards a 'battle pass' type system in PS2. Popularized I think by Battle Royale games, it seems everyone has to have one now, just given different names. Warframe (which I used to play long ago) introduced what is essentially a battle pass. You can't pay for it, but it's limited time, slow release content what once its gone it's gone. And that company certainly cant afford to waste time on limited time content. Even WoW has a battle pass now. I think Fortnite does something with 'seasons' where they have a event at the end and then the map is different in the next season, I think i read about that once, but I've never played. There is a niggling feeling in the back of my head that this campaign is a prototype for those kinds of things. Thank you all regardless for your thoughts. I hope I'm wrong and I hope they reintroduce the 'campaign'. Heck, leave any special rewards out and just give generic stuff, at least the story, such as i hear it is, would remain.
