Controversial: Augmentation might be a bad idea if set to 25 and later

We have not received permission from daveywavey to share the quoted post.

That's not really the point though.

In terms of any design, the question should always be 'can I make this better without really compromising anything'. It's bad to get stuck on any of your own arbitrary things. Not to say explicitly that the decision given here is arbitrary, but someone would have to explain to me why it stands up to scrutiny, because I can't find a reason yet.

We don't know if it could change, we don't know why Intrepid chose level 25. None of my guesses as to why it was chosen as 25 are particularly charitable, since I know why developers and designers normally do this sort of thing.

So if it could be changed to 15, without seriously affecting anything, there's no reason they won't change it. If changing it to 15 alleviates some of the problem for new players as @Kesthely described it, then one should check if the original reason for setting it to 25 is worth the 'damage' that is being predicted. Something that generally would be done by experience. Experience that might not have been available at the time of the decision.

"When you get to start Augments" isn't exactly a 'core game mechanic'. Fortunately I guess we can just 'ask Steven why it's level 25' and hope we get an answer. The discussion itself isn't necessarily invalidated by the fact that 'lowering it or adding something that introduces it earlier would be different from what was said before'.

I think they are.

I think @Kesthely 's outlined explanation is entirely correct and is technically conservative.

My various experiences back this up, though of course they are anecdotal.

So, I'm not 'assuming', because the argument here is 'people who would otherwise remain, would leave', and I'm adding 'the game might not be compromised by solving this problem in a way that causes less people to leave'.

Edit: In general 'other people in the thread don't see a problem' is not a response that is useful when it comes to me, because the 'easy' answer, which I just don't use, is to 'call all the people that trust me to speak for them relative to game design to also verify that they see a problem'. Let's not clutter the thread with that.

We have not received permission from daveywavey to share the quoted post.

This is an argument used a lot in design, it's unfortunately ruined by survivor bias.

The majority of people one talks to about a game are those who get over any rough patch they have and continue playing. Those who get frustrated, and 'go do something else and then just never bother to come back', move on to the community of the 'something else' and you don't get metrics on their loss from just commentary except the ones who are so salty and mad about it that they complain too hard and then get disregarded for that reason.

You'd have to gather a lot of data about 'players who stop playing games because of patches and changes' from the internal metrics side to know that what you've said isn't the norm. Because it isn't. Let me know if I should start citing examples, and let me know if they 'must be MMOs to count'.

The point being made is that 'picking up the game and then playing one way, and then changing that way of playing much later in a way that meaningfully affects your tactile experience with the game', can cause disruption and disinterest. Add the time investment required to get to level 25, compare to the general player's ability to play, and then basically go 'will this person understand the media they consume'. Especially since players of the type we're talking about, rely heavily on other people with analytic skills or at least strong personalities who just 'tell them what to do because it's clearly good'.

The things you say are 'likely' are not necessarily more likely than the other way. It might be that 'those are the people that you prefer would continue to play Ashes and you don't really care about the other kind of person', but it's just not true to 'claim what players will be like' in that way.

The only thing saving this whole thing is the fact that you can just double down on your Primary and hopefully that will be 'what you signed up for', because a player of the second type will probably not lose out on anything by doing this. Presumably this is why the specific example was used. I expect that Rangers and Bards are going to have the hardest time of this, based on the data collected.

We have not received permission from Jahlon to share the quoted post.

And this is how you decided to troll people into reading your website? No tantalizing crumbs, no actual argument, just tearing people down? Big oof.

We have not received permission from Gizban to share the quoted post.

So lemme see if I get this...

You're basically calling anyone who chooses an Archetype based on that list that we've had multiple threads about, and then the gameplay doesn't suit their style, a twit?

Including all the Predators, Scouts, Necromancers, Falconers, etc?

Why is this community like this?

"Y'all are stupid, Intrepid should never change anything for you, gtfo with your (insert request for change here)."

Even when nothing of value is being protected, even when the stuff people are poking about is stuff that Intrepid either explicitly said is possible (meaningful changes to Skills via Secondary for example) or would barely affect anything negatively...

Seriously, why?