Rather than pessimism, I see opportunity for Season 5, a possible way to make Season 5 a mini expac

[CaptainVanguard.4925]

What if Season 5 could hypothetically have more than just regular new major content updates and story, and perhaps potentially add one extra thing to the table while not being a substantially massive thing, still being something of value.

 

What if Season 5, adds a 3rd spec for every class, in incraments.

 

See I think this would be a small bitter-sweet compramise people would be, while not entirley happy with, happy enough with to call it a transitionary period.

 

Using this opportunity we could add a 3rd spec for current classes, however, unlike HoT/PoF, these specs are added "periodically" as opposed to over-all. Season 5 could have a 6 episode format like its previous Season, but every 2nd episode, it adds 3 new specs for one light, medium, and heavy profession.

 

This may not be a perfect solution, and Indeed I could see some classes feeling left out till the last episodes, but it also gives a-net time to make something "genuinley interesting" for Season 5 that at least can be considered a "feature" as opposed to it just being, more zones/armor/weapon sets and more grinding.

 

I also say, the reason I say specifically 3 per every even number episode is that it gives a-net time to work on those specific profession specs to balance them rather than wasting time over-burdening themselves with 9 specs at the launch or ending of season 5.

 

To me this could be the compramise the playerbase needs to have "something akin to content" as it would mean players get something useful, actually valued. Id also say, bring back some content from HoT/Season 3 aswell as PoF to make older masteries valueable again, such as the thermal port mastery in season 3.

 

Again, its a bitter-sweet compramise between season development and expansion development, it allows a-net to work on small but progressive content while the bigger expansion team could work on bigger things, such as new classes, races, mounts, features and of course continents/zones and most importantly expansion storylines.

 

Example:

Season 5 could introduce something like say, Episode 2 of Season 5 brings us a new heavy/medium/light spec for each of them, so this round it could be, Revenant, Mesmer and Ranger. Episode 4 gives, say Guardian/Engineer/Elementalist and then episode 6 adds the Warrior/Thief/Necromancer specs to top it off.

 

Again, I think while this isnt an amazing system, it could give them enough time to balance these specs into the rest of them without oppressing the game, and add enough content to add something new.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, you are saying pull people off of the expansion team (if there is one), and place them on the Living World team? And those Devs that don't work on the first 3 Elite Specs have much more time than those Devs that do? Or were you thinking the Devs are interchangeable? Because according to their Guild Chat appearances, they are not.

 

I'm sure new Elite Specs would be welcome for some; wouldn't mean much to me, so no loss of revenue because they weren't included in the upcoming (if there is such a thing) expansion.

[Balsa.3951]

Build Templates and everyone will shut up

[Linken.6345]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

 

Wait dont you mean LS4.6?

[Bast.7253]

I'd imagine to pull off their living story meets expansion content model, they'd have to restructure in a way that everything is really specialized and maybe reduce down to two teams instead of three. And maybe have the two teams working on the playable content like story/maps, and then have a third team working on additional features that they can add in like elite specs or what not. Then again, those features would probably have to be integrated pretty well with the other teams, and if the feature is scrapped it could throw off the whole workflow. So I don't know. I'm not sure how I'd feel about getting elite specs getting split up like that, and it may not sit well with the community with our current cadence. I think it would be a great opportunity to introduce them in the story and give the elite specs more lore surrounding them, but I just don't see it as being worth risking the backlash.

 

Would probably be better to just have them released in one episode, whether it be the beginning and a result of events of the last season, the end of the season and the results of the current season, or the dead center after some climactic story event that helps enforce their introduction. I'm not sure I see any of that happening though.

 

Best case we get another iteration of Sun's Refuge that actually sees more development and use than one episode, or new mounts.

 

But most likely scenario is that we will get more mounts. Underwater/spider. Mounts are designed really well, and I doubt they would do this because it would diminish the value of every other mount and reduce mount sale skins.. but if they didn't care about those factors I could easily see them introducing an Aurene/Aurene themed mount. If you think about it, you could give it a lift-off function that provides the same altitude of the springer, a gliding over water/hover ability like skimmer, a teleport ability like jackal in the sense that it ports in and out of the mists instead of typical jackal animation, and maintain the same flight functionality of the griffon, with a leap being kind of pointless but implemented similarly... maybe even a raptor leap that reaches the altitude of a maxed mastery springer leap and propels you forward. I don't really see this happening in terms of being implemented as a new mount, but I am rather surprised we haven't seen it implemented in a story instance so far.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

>

> Wait dont you mean LS4.6?

 

I'd think LWS4 E6 would be due around April or maybe May? And then Season 5 in July, or perhaps August?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

>

> Wait dont you mean LS4.6?

 

90 days from 8 Jan 2019 is 8 April. 90 more days is July for LS5.1.

I would expect there to be a delay of 1-3 weeks due to the layoffs, but maybe they'll catch up (maybe not).

 

Regardless the point is: whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is already well planned out; they've already been working on parts of it for months.

[Linken.6345]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Linken.6345" said:

> > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

> >

> > Wait dont you mean LS4.6?

>

> 90 days from 8 Jan 2019 is 8 April. 90 more days is July for LS5.1.

> I would expect there to be a delay of 1-3 weeks due to the layoffs, but maybe they'll catch up (maybe not).

>

> Regardless the point is: whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is already well planned out; they've already been working on parts of it for months.

 

Dont forget the delay chinese new years and sab most likely will have on said plans, same as wintersday had for LW4.5.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> Dont forget the delay chinese new years and sab most likely will have on said plans, same as wintersday had for LW4.5.

Yeah, I thought of trying to take that into account, but instead I looked at the average gap for LS3 and LS4. It was 73 days for LS3 and 94 for LS4, so I feel comfortable with a guestimate of 90 days for LS4.5→4.6 and another 90 for LS4.6→LS5.1. The actual dates won't match, but I think we end up in the right ballpark.

 

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Linken.6345" said:

> > Dont forget the delay chinese new years and sab most likely will have on said plans, same as wintersday had for LW4.5.

> Yeah, I thought of trying to take that into account, but instead I looked at the average gap for LS3 and LS4. It was 73 days for LS3 and 94 for LS4, so I feel comfortable with a guestimate of 90 days for LS4.5→4.6 and another 90 for LS4.6→LS5.1. The actual dates won't match, but I think we end up in the right ballpark.

>

 

There's actually been an average of 101 days between LS4 releases. (There were 364 days between the release of LS3.1 and LS3.6 so it's 364/5 = 72.8 days and 406 days from the release of LS4.1 until the release of LS4.5 so it's been 406/4=101.5).

[Tzarakiel.7490]

I always thought season 5 would have the new elite specs and some other things usually reserved for expansions. I would consider season 5 a failure otherwise.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Linken.6345" said:

> > > Dont forget the delay chinese new years and sab most likely will have on said plans, same as wintersday had for LW4.5.

> > Yeah, I thought of trying to take that into account, but instead I looked at the average gap for LS3 and LS4. It was 73 days for LS3 and 94 for LS4, so I feel comfortable with a guestimate of 90 days for LS4.5→4.6 and another 90 for LS4.6→LS5.1. The actual dates won't match, but I think we end up in the right ballpark.

> >

>

> There's actually been an average of 101 days between LS4 releases. (There were 364 days between the release of LS3.1 and LS3.6 so it's 364/5 = 72.8 days and 406 days from the release of LS4.1 until the release of LS4.5 so it's been 406/4=101.5).

 

I was counting the short gap between PoF's launch and Daybreak (LS4.1). That's 473 days for 5 episodes or 95 days (well 94.6, which I mistakenly rounded down).

>! (As an aside, the two of the shortest three gaps between Living World patches occurred in the post-HoT universe: 59 days for LS3.6→PoF and 67 days from PoF→LS4.1. The longest gap by far was from HoT→LS3.1, at 277 days. The most recent four gaps are relatively long, but we tend to minimize the long drought after HoT launched.)

 

For the sake of discussion, let's say we used the longer 101 days instead of the LS4-weighted compromise of 90 days I chose or the 73-day average for LS3...

Then LS4.6 comes out mid-April, Season 5 launches at the end of July... which still doesn't change the ballpark, highly-speculative predictions.

 

And more importantly, it doesn't change the point relating to the topic of this thread: whatever ANet has planned for LS5 is already set. They might drop something that isn't fully ready, but they won't be adding anything as substantial as a full set of new elite specs; there just isn't enough time.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Tzarakiel.7490" said:

> I always thought season 5 would have the new elite specs and some other things usually reserved for expansions. I would consider season 5 a failure otherwise.

 

I think that's a bit too high of an expectation. LW releases are "free" for those who log in. Content usually released with expansions (mounts for example) are what makes the real dough. Why would ANet give that away in a LW release?

[zallesz.1650]

I think that from a storytelling and content point of view, the last Season was almost on par with an expansion. We have been through so much. Okay, we did not get new skills and elites and whatnot, but this has been an amazing journey, full of emotions and characters and things to do and amazing maps. Keep in mind that this content was absolutely free and there are games out there that would charge a full retail price for such a thing.

Yes, I am also an optimist about the next season, we could see some great storytelling unfold in the upcoming months.

Keep up the good work, Anet!

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > Whatever ANet has planned for LS5.1 is pretty much already set. If they stick to the "90 days between releases," it is due out in mid-July; there's no chance they could decide to add 9 elite specs today (or any other big change) and get it done by then, even if they hadn't just lost 143 people.

>

> Wait dont you mean LS4.6?

 

No, they meant LWS5.1, as the fifth season is already in development and has been for a while now.