How do you feel about the content being spread through the Season?

@lem0n-curry

There have been occasions where an update was postponed, all of a sudden you might no longer be in the clear for your rewards, as you might have no time to play that week.
They could change the length of the ledger, sure but they're going to have to inform those that expect it to last the complete month.

You mean that there's a chance that in that extra week someone will surpass you and make you go below a threshold? I don't know, in my experience you lose so little positions during the end of the month that you can safely stay there for much more than a week, possibly because the interest goes down. If you get over a threshold you should do it by a safe margin imo, if you are at least 50k-100k up you are usually completely fine, that's my rule and I've never even barely risked. If you stay in a margin of 1k-10k you are risking anyway.
I think this won't be a problem for anyone who "plays it safe" already and who don't take precautions already get demoted.

You do know that many complain about patch-updates during their play unexpected while currently there is a notice on the start screen ? It will take some time and certainly a lot of support tickets (and at least 10 posts on the forums) from players who thought the position on the 30th or 31st would give them a reward...

As there's always a bit of confusion when a new season starts announcing the new ledgers in the preview. I think both systems are flawed here.

@peony7185

I think I got the point, to me it doesn't feel consistent because I always get all the rewards on the first month, which means the only Ledger I care about is the first of a new season, as new Ledger rewards comes with new seasons. Not caring about the Ledgers in-between it feels wrong to me that the new Ledgers rewards, which are tied to the launch of a new season, are not there at the its launch.

I also don't personally care if the Ledgers lasts 25 or 35 days, I don't see how this changes anything. It's technically already inconsistent by a small margin as it doesn't last always the same exact amount of days, I don't think having a margin of "error" of about 5 days up or down an average of 30 per Ledgers to adjust to a Season's length is an issue or makes it unfair.

@pellahh said in How do you feel about the content being spread through the Season?:

@lem0n-curry

There have been occasions where an update was postponed, all of a sudden you might no longer be in the clear for your rewards, as you might have no time to play that week.
They could change the length of the ledger, sure but they're going to have to inform those that expect it to last the complete month.

You mean that there's a chance that in that extra week someone will surpass you and make you go below a threshold? I don't know, in my experience you lose so little positions during the end of the month that you can safely stay there for much more than a week, possibly because the interest goes down. If you get over a threshold you should do it by a safe margin imo, if you are at least 50k-100k up you are usually completely fine, that's my rule and I've never even barely risked. If you stay in a margin of 1k-10k you are risking anyway.
I think this won't be a problem for anyone who "plays it safe" already and who don't take precautions already get demoted.

I also use a safe margin; but if you have a margin of lets say 10k with an hour to midnight you're probably safe and can log off; if it all of a sudden gets extended with a week where you planned not playing SoT, you might have chosen to do an extra voyage (or two) depending on when the alarm is going off the next day.

You do know that many complain about patch-updates during their play unexpected while currently there is a notice on the start screen ? It will take some time and certainly a lot of support tickets (and at least 10 posts on the forums) from players who thought the position on the 30th or 31st would give them a reward...

As there's always a bit of confusion when a new season starts announcing the new ledgers in the preview. I think both systems are flawed here.

Perhaps starting this season, people won't expect to have all content drop on the start of the season anymore - well, we can hope...

@lem0n-curry

I also use a safe margin; but if you have a margin of lets say 10k with an hour to midnight you're probably safe and can log off; if it all of a sudden gets extended with a week where you planned not playing SoT, you might have chosen to do an extra voyage (or two) depending on when the alarm is going off the next day.

I mean, I think they know they are delaying an update AT LEAST a week before, I don't think these would be last minute changes.

Also, if we want to take everything in consideration we might want to see the other side of the coin: one might had some unexpected events that prevented him to play on the last week, maybe even technical issues with the game, and getting that extra week would allow him to farm.

I don't like the new model with time limited activities. I've had a bad shoulder injury and my arm in a sling for the last month unable to play hence I've missed out on the first adventure so I really have no motivation for any other adventures and will just not bother when I can return. It's not even FOMO, the ship has sailed and left me on the dock on my todd.. :-(

@ghostpaw

You are right about one thing; there is my perspective, your perspective, and then there is objective reality. Yes, there is a “real unique answer,” but you and I do not have access to it. We are not going to “carve nature at its joints” in a forum discussion. Rare knows what their motives are. We can only guess.

Yes, that's where discussion starts.

My point was, since the beginning they were trying to set up SoT as a world that is always evolving, and that included making changes to the world that are noticeable. Sharks swarming before Hungering Deep. Mists covering some islands. Structures being built up over time for us to ponder over.

And I do agree on that, never said the opposite, I just said they've never had to delay content in order to do this.

I think it is clear that they have a vision for the game that goes beyond “let’s make money somehow” and “let’s find every way we can to squeeze what we can from our player base.” I just don’t see it that way. That’s not naivety.

Even here, I think you misunderstood me. I've never stated that Rare does this just for the money, that they want to squeeze everything they can, nor I said I don't think Rare has passion.

In fact I stated I do think they are passionate about their project (a bit lacking in PvE area), but that's not just it. In order for the project to exist in the first place they need to make money, in order for the project to keep existing they have to think on how to make it work. Which is part of the business and

You can spare me the “it’s a business” rhetoric unless you just feel the need to get it off your chest for some reason.

Seems like I CAN'T spare as it's a part of my point, which looks like you are missing since this is what you think I'm saying:

I think it is clear that they have a vision for the game that goes beyond “let’s make money somehow” and “let’s find every way we can to squeeze what we can from our player base.”

The thing I thought was naive was this:

Yes, they are a business, but if people can’t see how passionate they are about what they are creating, and that their vision is what primarily drives their decisions, then I don’t think you will ever recognize it.

I mean, why have they've been focusing on new players so much? Why Athena got ignored for so much and when it got 1 single piece of content (Athena's Run) it felt they didn't care?

I think they surely have a vision for the game and that their are passionate about it, but they also want their game to succeed from a business stand point, and for a game to succeed it usually doesn't mean getting better o be more authorial but being more accessible. I think they tried to both work on what they wanted to make and what they needed to make for the game to succeed, regardless of their reasons. I don't see one side of the coin, I see both.

To me a product made out of pure passion and with a strong vision is Dark Souls 1, there are places that you may never discover if you do just one run. Miyazaki wasn't scared about hiding large portion of content like the Ash Lake or Oolacile, many players may lose that experience but who gets to experience it will experience something incredible, while Rare makes sure everybody gets everything at the cost of making it overall more bland or avoid working for stuff that only a small % of player would enjoy, unless it's FOMO content! Then it's fine to make stuff that people will never be able to get again. I may be wrong on this but a lot of time ago they said they weren't developing PL content because there were not enough PL out there, Athena's Run was probably "low budget" because they felt they had to do something because of PL crying for the lack of content but at the same time didn't think it was worth it and made somewhat of a middle ground, nothing compared to the effort they are putting into the new PL voyages, from what we can see in trailers, now that there are enough players (I guess the emissary system helped). I just can't see Rare as authorial as other studios, I don't think they strictly follow their vision.

Also Arkhane Studios' games are what I think is an exception to the market together with most Miyazaki works.

But we are getting a bit out of topic here.

@ghostpaw

You know what? this discussion seems a big one, if you want to keep going one I'll make an apposite thread (or make it yourself if you want and I'll find it) so we don't fill up this one by slowly going off-topic with long messages.

@pellahh

Not a fan of the drip feed throughout the Season. It kind of defeats the purpose of seasons IMO if they're going back to doing content drops every month or two. Spreading out the content drops by 3 months to give them more dev time and sustainability was one of the big reasons they went to the season structure, no?