Some records are made to be broken. This is probably not one of them.
DNA3000
Member, Guardian Guardian › Posts: 19,422 Guardian
I am a silly, silly player sometimes.
Next will be two years of Sigil, which should happen in January 2029. I wonder what the game will even look like then. When I first started subscribing to the Sigil, basically when it first came out in July 2019:
The highest progression title was Cavalier (Thronebreaker was still a year out)
The highest possible champion rank was 6* R3 (I think)
Act 6.2 had just been released (we were beta testing 6.3)
The highest monthly EQ difficulty tier was Uncollected
The highest tier end game content was Labyrinth of Legends
AQ did not yet have modifiers
We were still grinding for 5* champs in the arena
We could still sell champions
There was no Incursions or Battlegrounds (we did have the precursor to Incursions: Dungeons)
The game is still recognizable of course, but in many ways it is a totally different game. We chase champions differently, or at least with different intent, we have more game modes to spread out time around, and almost all the content in parts of the game that did not exist back then is designed completely differently, with the new emphasis on roster depth (i.e. Act 7+, TB EQ difficulty, Seasons of Pain, Crucible). And I think there's been a more subtle shift from the pre-2019 game where you did content as part of the process of eventually progressing upward to doing content *explicitly* to progress up. Do 6.1, get Cavalier. Do Necropolis, get Valiant. That sort of thing. Admittedly, that began with the Collector, but still. Growing roster outward is still a grind, but progressing upward seems to me to be more of a skill hurdle than a grind barrier (cf: Cantona's speed runs).
And I think there's a lot more end game content than in the days (literally days) of the Maze. Not just traditional end game content like Gauntlet, Crucible and Summer of Suffering, but also competitive end game content vis-a-vis Battlegrounds. But the game is still very casual friendly. I still see players come back to the game after sometimes years of absence, and instead of being completely overwhelmed to the point of being scared away, they are often amazed by how much more content there is to do, how much more rewards there are and how easy they are to achieve with just a modicum of effort.
Yes, there are bugs, and yes there are obvious process failures. And yes, not everything the devs do is loved by everyone. But the fact that we still have a relatively stable playerbase that still plays the game, and the game still attracts lots of new players, and the game still welcomes back and is relatively friendly to players that previously dropped the game, and it has evolved so much over the last four and a half years but is still recognizably the same game, bodes well for me actually making it to two years of Sigil with the game still going strong.
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Comments
You getting commission for this one?
But as to subbing at all, I personally think the benefits are genuinely marginally optional. Which is to say, they exist and they are worth something, but whether they are worth the subscription price depends on how expensive it is in relative terms. To me, the Sigil has no material cost and I’m happy to support a game I play. I come from the old school MMO market where you subbed to games just to play them at all, and when most converted to F2P or hybrid games subbing became a way to support the game even though you could play for free.
Ten bucks a month is $120/yr and that’s probably a lot of money for most of our player base. I believe those of us who love the game and play it and can afford to should support it financially, because every dollar we spend is a dollar someone else doesn’t have to.
I could also whale out during big sale days and sometimes I in fact do. But the Sigil is consistent recurring revenue, and the accountants out there will understand why I specifically sub to support the game.
Stop trying to scare people into agreeing with you.
Like actually say something.
Kabam sees people buying months/years in advance and think all is well.
None other than the bootlicking DNA would do something so dumb.
Sigil needed to be updated like 6 months ago.
I think the Sigil store is often neglected and the players that subscribe feel taken for granted, and I say this as a long time former user of the Sigil. The 7star Switch kept me interested for a small period of time but it lacks anything of true value to a paragon player let along valiant players outside of that.
However, in pure economic terms the value of the Sigil is highly dependent on the value of arena express. For someone that grinds arena a lot, arena express can both increase the value of the Sigil to the point of being well worth it (it still won’t have the pure unit value of the daily card, but then again nothing else does) as well as having a very strong quality of life benefit that’s hard to put a value on.
I do agree that the Sigil deserves an update, but I never want the Sigil benefit to become so good that everyone agrees the value is awesome. At that point, it becomes too much of a need and not a want. A properly balanced Sigil is one where a reasonable percentage of the players think the value is worth it and buy it, but everyone else - probably the majority of players - think it isn’t and have no regrets about not buying it. You never want the majority of players to think if they don’t spend, and most don’t, they are missing out on something important.
When a majority of players think the Sigil is not worth the price, that’s actually working as intended, or at least working as I think it should. You just want *enough* people to disagree.
My position is that there should be a small
advantage to having the sigil that is progression relevant, and really at the top of the game it no longer offers enough of an advantage in acquisition to be worth it.
I have a feeling I’m not going to be seeing a lot of major reward updates heading into the banquet or cyber weekend, where such reward boosts would be diluting the value of those events. But I have no information one way or the other, its just a feeling.