LordKnightFandragon, on 03 July 2019 - 12:29 AM, said:
Because the game has an insanely fast TTK. Mechs take a few hits and they are done. Its alot more 'turn on shutdown override, and fire till the game ends, with 0 shits given about heat management, and wildly flailing around and really twitchy gameplay, vomitting as many lasers as you can and cant realistically fit on your mech. It compares much better to CoD or WoT than say ArmA or a more realistic/slower paced type game.
I will stay playing a game for years on end if the gameplay is fun. Games like BF1942, BF2, 2142, Company of Heroes, Men of War. Each of those games i played until the servers turned off. The Division I logged 1150 hours into it. I still occasionally go back and play that a little bit. Company of Heroes and Men of War, I still play, hell, both games i even made mods for(which go along way to giving PVE type games longevity). I still play CoH and Men of War using my mods. Both mods I still mess with as well. I also dabbled a little in HBS Battletech, but I dont play it much because A: It doesnt have coop and B: it doesnt have the Warhammer and C: Its honestly not quite as complex as I was hoping for and D: Modding it is a pain in the ***.... Its absurdly basic and that kind of made it boring to me. Not a bad game though, im waiting for Heavy metal expansion to see what that has.
I will agree some PVE games do get boring after you've experienced the content. For me, one example of that would be Borderlands 2. Its a good game, really only fun played coop with a buddy, but what makes it boring for me is the lack of customization options. Sure, you get a metric **** load of loot, but you cant do anything with it. What you get is what it is. You cant mod the gun, you cant alter its stats(not without modding programs). Its not like Division, where there is indepth and countless different combos you can come up with.
Diablo III id say is another decent game that I got bored with. I have my build, but the only thing to really do is just keep hoping for Ancients and trying to fight tougher and tougher mobs. Plus the combat doesnt offer much in the way of tactical or strategic thinking to keep it interesting(which is another aspect that keeps PVE interesting). If the devs make the combat and gameplay fun, engaging, entertaining and challenging, through the required tactics, brainpower, teamwork, coordination, that is what keeps a game alive and kicking, even if it doesnt have tons of new content. Probably one of the most fun PVE experiences I had was playing the Battlefield 2 mod: Project Reality. I know that same team have made the game Squad, but its PVP...so nope....
Games like Armored Warfare, yeah, that is a game that can get insanely stale in the PVE dept. The AI are terrible, the missions are bland, boring and basically the same recipe reguritated over and over again. Nothing new, nothing exciting, and its pretty much "Go high tier MBT or super rocket AFV or go home".....that is what makes a PVE game boring. Ya gotta find a way to at least shake up your gameplay, so every playthrough is not literally a copy paste of the last time, like Armored Warfare is. Every playthrough of X map is going to be done the exact same way....
The success of a PVE game depends heavily on the ability of the devs to design good missions as well as good AI. Not the point where it feels like extreme cheating, but to the point where, combined with mission design, it offers at least some degree of a fight. Making it grindy to prolong the content, that is just lazy development.....and thats where we are with PVE as a whole anymore. Its not about making a good game, its just about scraping by with the bare minimum and releasing content just fast enough to hopefully keep people playing.
I dont mind monetization to a point. If I enjoy a game, I will spend, probably more than I should on it. Armored Warfare, I bought the top founder pack, 70 bucks, and ive bought several 50 dollar gold packs as well as a Premium Leo 2 Revo at the tune of 9000 gold, or around 40 bucks. Planetside 2, I spent god knows how much on that game. Even MWO, I spend a good probably 300 on it, mostly buying and trying new mechs.......and mostly because the grinding was stupid slow. I hate the kind of monetization we see in Armored Warfare. HUGE expensive packs that offer nothing. Or in the case of the BAttle Path and MWO, WOT, making progression deliberately slow to the point where you almost feel compelled to spend money(and this issue goes beyond PVE).
You also highlighted the very problem of PvE modes. You need some very skilled, talented scenario designers with a great sense of balance.
That is not a resource I see with PGI given their track record.
When I mean game directors I mean like triple A rated ones with lots of experience in designing these missions and understand by hard experience all the flaws and holes it can bring. All the examples you shown above are triple A rated games from top studios. Do you see this talent with PGI, or with an independent startup games company?
How often will you see such triple A rated directors on a mech game? The last time I enjoyed a mech game with triple A rated direction including plot, scenario, mission modes and all, that's the last series of Armored Core before the very same developers decided to move on to making Dark Souls games because fantasy games are so much more financially lucrative.
It takes a lot more money, skill and development talent to make an interesting story mode driven, single player or coop PvE game than a PvP game, which is why the games industry --- most unfortunately --- have shifted to the latter. Except on mobile where gacha and microtransactions are able to sustain the expensive talent needed for such games, but we don't want to get into these monetization methods. Or you get single player or coop games that has lots of DLCs.
Huge expensive packs that offer nothing but skins and content that isn't stronger than what you get for free is a great thing. Because if they do offer something of value in terms of game play, this leads to Pay to Win and Pay to Play eventualities.
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