Spires feedback
MeeYappsAlot is back with more unsolicited observations and advice. I have more comments now and in the future, but I will probably post them at a somewhat slow pace. I will try not to cover topics I feel have already been adequately discussed in this and other channels. Again, these posts aren’t intended to be specific solutions, just observations and thoughts.
First and foremost, I would like to say I think Spires was a very good and necessary addition to the game. While I don’t have the numbers, I believe it does its 2 primary jobs of onboarding and repetition very well. I also think it is somewhat independently fun, although I probably wouldn’t play it standalone(and that’s fine)
I do think that there was some degree of failed player retention due to the fact that some people joined expecting a BR, and then left out of confusion or frustration when it wasn’t what they expected. I’m not sure what the answer to that is or if it needs to be addressed now. Just wanted to note it.
With that said, I would like to talk about balance issues that find their roots in a secondary mode that is still tied to the main one. I am sure you have internally talked about this many times through the entire process of thinking, making, and postmaking of spires. I would still like to state my opinions on it.
Fundamentally, they are different modes. And when the players involved are relatively good, they are significantly different modes that can find themselves in completely different metas, combat flow, skills required, and players that like and do well at them.
Before I go further, I would like to clarify that this is not inherently an issue. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and actually I think it can be an avenue to exploring what makes the game so fun: creativity. At the end of the day, I feel what I, a hardcore PvP player, and casual players find so god damn fun about this game is the build variety. The intentional and unintentional processes of trying random items to try and find what is good and bad is what I believe truly hooks people into the game. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had in this game is planning up a build idea on a whim, and then slowly coming to that aha moment. That realization of “holy shit, this works.” Don’t get me wrong, the team gameplay aspect of the game is very intriguing, but I think this is where the soul of Arkheron is.
To that end, I think spires are the breeding ground for that. The sheer amount of not only build variety, but competitive build variety that can be found here is unmatched. I think a lot of this has to do with the nature of spires being a curated low-level environment. Normally, in an ascension match, I could not reasonably risk playing some hyperspecific shatter build because it, as explained in my previous post, would be susceptible to glaring weaknesses when incomplete, as well as take away multiple other potential meta builds, and be hard to procure when other teams run specific pure eternals. Because of this we can try the tsubo-dahla the vaton-pene the rynshi-hollow and dozens of more builds couldn’t risk in ascension
This is where Spires shines in its uniqueness and fun; however, it is for these same reasons that I fear attempts at controlling this. There are already a multitude of builds that are uniquely strong in spires but not so in ascension, and attempts at adjusting them would likely make them unplayable in 1 or even both modes.
I know some negative feelings are floating around about the game in general and Spires specifically, but I have never seen so many unique, interesting, specific, and competitive builds in Arkheron until the recent Spires tests. (btw I mean truly competitive builds. I’ve seen a lot of devs play a lot of…interesting builds, but from the bottom of my heart they usually aren’t very competitive 
) I truly think Spires is a phenomenal window into what makes Arkheron great.
I think a very interesting method is to let them run independently of each other and have different patches for them. I think this would create the most amount of creativity and would, long-term, make it feel the healthiest, but I understand this is rarely a feasible reality for relatively smaller studios.
For that reason, I am not going to be so presumptuous as to say the solution is clearly to invest the upfront and continuous time and effort in building them independently.
I will present 2 alternative dogmas: Firstly, let it be. If the first option is not realistic, I think it would be beneficial to accept that the 2 modes will be out of sync at times. There will be periods of time where, be it the eternal pools and/or patches, certain builds outdo others in particular modes. I think that is ok if the first solution isn’t feasible. I think another important theme to follow is an ever-changing game. I feel this should be in the creative nature of Arkheron to begin with, but I feel this helps unintentionally mitigate some of these issues. Feelings of overtuned, stale and mismatched metas between the modes wouldn’t feel so bad if both are constantly changing.
Again, I don’t have a grand solution, just a suggestion in approach. Accept that there will be periods of mismatched metas and imbalance because of it. And actively encourage an ever-shifting and vast meta.
for me, it’s often about just messing around and having fun rather than trying to be optimal.