Best Of

Obviously there are more than three, but I’d like to focus on three things that currently reduce my day to day game enjoyment.

1. Loading Times: This is becoming an epidemic for me and at least a batch of others. Wait times starting a fight, completing a fight, ranking a champ, moving in quests…it’s just a holding pattern while the spinning disc continues to spin around. Personally haven’t ever seen it this bad, but it affects boosts, rhythm, time spent playing, etc.

2. Currencies: I realize there’s an ongoing effort to simplify game currencies, but it feels like there’s no effort to sort out some currencies. Mysterium is the most obvious, but I’d put loyalty up there also. Stores need an update—period. If I’m playing at least in part to earn currencies that aren’t worth anything for me, that makes me want to play modes less or not at all.

3. Cadences: More than just one thing here—for starters, the decision to decouple start times for EQ/SQ from updates adversely affects timing of game play. I’m often unsure when something drops and I consider myself reasonably well-informed. Also, Crystal inclusion timing—having champs remain in the Titan for the same time as human gestation was a fun experiment, but it’s way too long and devalues Titans. I will also suggest other random cadence things (Solvarch dropped on a Thursday after update, buffs that take super long times, e.g.). All of this makes it more difficult to play the game without stressing about schedules and planning.

I don’t expect any of these are simple fixes, but when I think about things that seem more controllable (as opposed to things like lag and game mechanics, which I’ve given up on), these three items feel somewhat approachable with a bit of effort.

Dr. Zola