Posted by MikeT23 on 11/18/2016 7:39:00 AM (view original):
To be clear, I'm not trying to start some new vs old user war. I have no idea why some of the veteran users hate the new version so much.
But, upon getting my team, the very first thread I opened began with something like this: "I've won 7 of the last 12 national championship. Now my team is gutted with 6 EE and no way to replace them." Huh? You've had a great team for practically ever and you're upset because you're losing some great players? What was expected?
Both sides here can fall into an over-simplistic straw-man caricature of the guys on the other side. I think everyone should probably acknowledge that people simply have different preferences in how they like to play. I think there are 2 big, general archetypes for game players. Group A is a group that plays games because they love competition, and seek the experience that games offer. In the case of HD, it's the experience of feeling like you have a real life coaching career. Those players want to get immersed in the experience while they play, they can tolerate losing as long as the competition is realistic *and* the gameplay is fun.
Group B plays to win. If they can't win, they get frustrated and move on. They don't necessarily have to dominate, but they want to always feel like they have a chance to compete, down years aren't acceptable. These guys *tend to* prefer simulations that are deterministic, not probabilistic. They want formulas they can figure out. They don't have any problem feeling like they're gaming the system, because they get their enjoyment from figuring it all out, and care less about the experience.
Ideally, you want both groups to play together. The problem is when the extreme group B guys become a big block of gaming whales, they overtake the game. This is what happens to virtually all MMP games. And then it's the guys who were first in that get to the top and stay there until everyone gets bored and the game dies. To avoid this, game developers need to stay ahead of the curve. It's not a good idea to cater to the preferences of extreme group B guys who don't like ambiguity, and need to have a formula they can crack, know, and exploit. You can hope they stick around, but the extreme members of that group will always prefer to stick with what they know, rather than learn a new system, especially if that system is less "gameable".