The issue is not as arcane and mystical as you make it sound like. First of all, we don’t know exactly what the devs have in mind for the feature of the game but if my hunch is correct, after reading the new terms of service with the Breach, they are calling it a live service game. Meaning there is going to be multiple seasons or that the game will go the way of No Man’s Sky.
My other suspicion is that since they went completely independent, contrary to what most people think, many decisions will be a business decision rather than artistic or otherwise. Simply put, as you also alluded to it, at the end of the day, they will need to sell as many copies as they can which explains why they are catering to the casuals with the last hotfix specially. That being said, if they want to be a live service, they are going to have to retain their core audience and they won’t stick around if the game continues on it’s current trajectory.
So what’s the issue at hand? Combat has become more and more trivial. Yes the art style is beautiful and the story is captivating, but at the end of the day, it is the challenges within the game mechanics, including combat that will retain an audience. The pursuit of the perfect build, the min maxing and the many hoops one has to jump through to achieve something is what a game like this needs to stay alive beyond launch.
When the Breach update was released, the combat was satisfyingly hard with only one major issue being the backstab window. It was next to impossible to execute one. You say it’s clunky and the animations are not your liking. This is a subjective opinion. You could learn the combat as it is and get good at it. Sure, overtime it will be polished and refined but it was NOT a hot mess as negative reviewers cried about. I watched countless reviews and read even more, and they were all saying the same thing while failing to learn the combat system: It’s too hard.
Don’t even get me started on the complaints about healing, food and town upgrades which were all a bunch of nonsense from people who need instant gratification.
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A never ending debate with minimum result and only demotivate those who purely wanna enjoy simple things, which is play the game.
To stop this, Moon need to address the issue with firm statement and clear vision (not ambiguous) about the direction of their development. So gamers can chose between continue support the game or just leave with bad review and move on.
Whatever the choice are, each has consequences and opportunities to be faced and utilize. IMO Moon need to clear and decisive about that.
I disagree that it’s just a matter of understanding.
Never said it’s the only cause, just that understanding makes the game easier, and it can be anticipated and calculated into difficulty creep. Of course there are a lot of other aspects. However according to normal distribution they must tune the game for the main audience. Or they should introduce difficulty levels as an alternative.
This would indeed be very constructive if we could actually have the dev official position on the matter. That way, as you said, both sides of the debate know what to do.
It’s their game and their choice, but for most of us who’ve been here since day 1, we’ll go the other way and forget investing time and effort in a game that’s going the way of D4.
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I understand everyone have their concern and passion in this game, for me I’m open to any possibility whether the game upscale their difficulty or tone down the challenge (doesn’t mean I didn’t have feedback).
Learn and enjoy as long as I can, although I prefer mechanic and challenge (not hardcore) but I still accept any change within Dev vision.
I hope everyone can enjoy every last bit in this game, whether the change fit to their taste or has some alteration
I have come to terms with the fact that making money to them is more important than making a special game. People who saw how special the game was already bought it. Not knowing the limitations of market share, the devs thought oh nice, let’s make more of it and it’ll blow up, ignoring the fact that had already attracted most of their target audience.
Well the only thing that blew up was their Steam reviews by the their new customers. So they tried to appease the new mob, and now their old faithful have also given up as the game is unrecognizable, button mash your way to end .
That’s the issue and no amount of feedback on our end will change the directive: Sell more copies. And how they do that? By making the game accessible to everyone who’s willing to watch the story for 10 hrs and forget about the game forever. The core audience for the game would have played this game for years to come with minor updates and would have happily paid for updates.
But no, they had to an panhandle to ARPG and other vermin of the gaming world who like to press 1 button 12hrs a day.
And to be clear, I don’t blame them. To us this is just a game, a mere pastime, for them, it’s their livelihood.
Enjoy the loss Moon Studios, of a once great IP. I hope you recover financially.