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I've been playing Dauntless for a year and a half now. Been keeping up with this subreddit, hearing people's opinions on the different updates. Any update or change to a game will have it's detractors, people who it doesnt play to as well, "grumpy old men" who will always say it was better back in the old days. That is to be expected.
But today, i got on Reddit, and scrolling down i see literally nothing but negative feedback about this update. The last couple have been the same. Hell, i made a post a couple months ago where i had to actively list off all the good things about the game, in a desperate attempt to keep some positivity.
I know PHX got bought out by Garena, a mobile game developer, and the change has been very apparent; so many more currencies, daily challenges that turn the game from an enjoyable past time, as a game should be, into a daily obligation. And now, in addition to the Hunt Pass, which has been gutted but kept at the same previous price, they added yet another subscription service, where you can spend more real dollars to increase your in-game rewards.
Some will point out that these rewards are purely cosmetics, which is true. Dauntless is not technically pay-to-win in this sense. That would imply that you can pay real money to kill behemoths faster. All the subscriptions, all the new currencies that demand so much more time (only to be wiped out at the end of the season, thus voiding all your work), all the rumors, are for cosmetics. They make your dude look cool while you fight.
But here's the thing; cosmetics are the 2nd endgame of Dauntless. Why do you kill monsters? To get better weapons and armor. Why do you need better weapons and armor? To get top times on Trials, or to make your casual hunting experience easier (more casual). Yes there is a gameplay goal there. But consider how much effort was put into how this game looks. There's all the regular behemoth armor and weapons, all the skins in the store, all the huntpasses. Given the amount of personal customization that is available, it's obvious that cosmetics is the endgame as much as gameplay is. If it wasnt, the game would look like Halo or one of the older CoDs; a few different helmets here and there, but mostly identical players, all the same color, all on the same team, and the focus would be purely on gameplay. How you look in Dauntless is just as important as how you play.
So with that in mind, take another look at the current state of the game and its 2 goals.
On the gameplay side, PHX kinda seems to have given up caring as much. Chainblades are still bugged for alot of people. Disconnects and timeouts still happen. We havent had a new weapon in however long. We've only had one legit rework, with the sword. The pike "rework" shuffled around some numbers but ended up being more of a shadow nerf. PHX claimed to be changing the way wounding works, separating it from part breaks and making it relevant, but what they actually did was make the pike as worthless as speedrunning metawh*res already thought it was. Hunting grounds wasnt new gameplay, it was the old gameplay squished together for convenience. Honestly the only good new gameplay recently has been escalation bosses. Not new escalations, mind you, just the new bosses. New behemoths. Actual new monsters with new moves to learn and practice with. O and that new behemoth? He still flings you across the arena with his tail, he still dies with no part break or maybe 1 or 2 if you're really lucky, he still gets staggered for about 2 seconds before he wakes up and dodges away or jumps to the ceiling. How did they make a giant cat less accessible than a legit flying dragon???
Aaaaaaand on the cosmetics side, while PHX has continued to pump out lots of new armor and weapon skins, new dyes, all that jazz, they are making it harder to get. I miss the days when i could spend $10 and have a bit less than 2 months to earn it all at my own pace. Now i spend $10 just for one set of armor and a couple extra pieces, and then i gotta log in every day and do my chores if i want the other set or any of the weapons. Or i can spend more money and only need to do half the chores. The only current redeeming factor for me is that the skins in the rewards cache right now are ugly so i dont feel bad not buying them. But I've always been a casual player, i want to play the game because its fun and i want to, not because i have to. I've put a sh*tton of money into platinum for skins and dyes, i love having a dozen different loadouts with armor and colors that match my weapon element.
So all that to say, here is what i would suggest. This is just my idea of what PHX can do to hopefully placate their players and at least somewhat fix the game.
First, scrap radiant HG. Just give us a radiant escalation so we have a complete set. Yeah the speedrunners will burn it out in a weekend, but thats what they do. The rest of us casuals can enjoy it for a bit longer.
Second, dont do another huntpass after this one. I know that sounds radical, and it is. Take the time and manpower you would put into yet another set of cosmetics, and put all your people into bug fixes. Smooth out the game. There are more than enough skins available for everyone to use for now. I'm telling you, we will be more than happy to be content with how we look now if we know that the game will run better as a result.
Third, get more of your people on Reddit to talk to your players. Some people are here to rant, some are here to more calmly express opinions, some are here just for the memes. But we need to see a massive increase in interaction with you guys. We need to know you actually care about the people keeping you in business.
It really hurts me to get on Reddit and hear all the negative feedback. It hurts because I agree with them. It hurts because they're right. PHX, you're letting us all down and bleeding players. Dont just ignore us and act like "o kids these days are never content, all they do is whine, we're fine." Some kids are like that, yeah. But there's plenty that arent, along with a hefty portion of adults, like myself, who have genuinely enjoyed your game. Please please PLEASE listen to your fanbase, listen and learn, because we wont be fans forever. We have other games we can play if this one continues to get worse.
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