Suggestion - New Release Cycle
Hello everyone.
So when I was lying in bed yesterday I got this crazy idea about a new release cycle. BHVRs accounting won't like this idea, as I am proposing to cut one chapter, but it would overall help players to enjoy the game and increase the game's health.
So, I would propose to do one licensed and one original chapter each year AND drumrole one Community chapter! Thats right. Players can send in their concepts, they get upvotes at all social media, creating some new buzz (Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, Youtube etc.) and everyone would get excited about this. Plus I recon that we would see a lot very cool designs and concepts. Maybe the winner gets the chapter for free or something and has to fully commit the rights over to BHVR, but I just think it would be so cool to get the community actively involved in the creation of a new chapter.
The last quarter of the year should be dedicated to game health, ie the meta shakeup and perk reviews would happen in this time, as would maybe new game mode PTB or map reworks. Overall balance should be the focus of this time and I bet that players would appreciate regular health updates much more then another seemingly lukewarm and undercooked concept.
What do you peeps think about this? The 4 releases per year that we got right now seem to put quite the stress on the design teams. A lot of stuff seems rushed or not well thought through, and while a lot gets salvaged and eventually ironed out with a couple of patches, I think the breakneck back to back releases are smothering some creativity. Also, the older the game gets, the more insustainable four full fledged releases seem to be each year, so slowing down somewhat seems to be the best option.
Comments
I, personally, would love this. I think it is a very nice way of making people get invested in the game even more so, takes some of the weigh off the devs shoulders and creates a more bidirectional communication between BHVR and the community. Also, people can come up with brilliant concepts that may not occur to them otherwise. On top of that, giving more time to focus on game's balance could lead to an overall more interesting gameplay for all the players.
Even if the licensed characters weren't released that often, which I would argue is not really necessary or profitable, it would still allow for more solid new additions -I'm not saying the ones we have are not solid, just that they could be better. Still, I'm not sure if this is something doable, even if devs wanted to, maybe the producers do want to release 4 chapters a year.