You don’t balance it with tedium, in a live service game, the tedium gives time to balance it properly. By the time people adapt to the meta, it has already been nerfed.
Live service games are not only balanced around tedium, they are designed around tedium. Without it people wouldn’t buy boosters etc.
Adapting the meta faster than people can catch up and letting people pay to keep up simply switches the game from balance by tedium to straight up pay to win. Or pay to play optionally, at least, which live service games heavily push you towards doing.
That’s what I’m specifically giving an alternative to. If you’re trying to discourage keeping up with the meta, you make it take long enough to adapt to the meta that you can patch out the meta.
You don’t balance it with tedium, in a live service game, the tedium gives time to balance it properly. By the time people adapt to the meta, it has already been nerfed.
Live service games are not only balanced around tedium, they are designed around tedium. Without it people wouldn’t buy boosters etc.
Adapting the meta faster than people can catch up and letting people pay to keep up simply switches the game from balance by tedium to straight up pay to win. Or pay to play optionally, at least, which live service games heavily push you towards doing.
That’s what I’m specifically giving an alternative to. If you’re trying to discourage keeping up with the meta, you make it take long enough to adapt to the meta that you can patch out the meta.