Epic Admits that Fortnite's Success is Hurting Paragon - Paragon - MMORPG.com

SBFord · January 2018

Epic Admits that Fortnite's Success is Hurting Paragon - Paragon - MMORPG.com

Paragon News - In an official post on the Paragon Reddit, Epic admits that Paragon is struggling to find its audience in the shadow of Fortnite's success. Several of the team members have moved off Paragon and over to Fortnite, so the development has slowed somewhat. "We're talking about the future of Paragon in pretty much the same terms you're talking about." the letter states.

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Albatroes · January 2018

No real surprise given that Fortnite is 2 pretty successful games in one. I'm sure the community of Paragon isn't surprised to hear this as well, but honestly Paragon wasn't really gaining that much traction anyway so going more in to Fort was a better move financially I'm sure

sycogenesis · January 2018

I would hate to see it go

AriesTiger · January 2018

Code monkeys gotta go where the money is or they're out of a job. Indian programmers are always a click away.

Gruug · January 2018

I feel these "battle royale" games are going to die off sooner then most think. They have little depth and get boring to play after a short while.

rojoArcueid · January 2018

Paragon should have been a different game. I don't like mobas and Paragon is the only moba i can stand. It plays like Gears of War. The characters are amazing and very well animated.

If they take those characters and make a different game i would totally support it. I would rather play Paragon than Fortnite just because of how well it feels to control those characters.

Too bad it is just a moba, but i would hate to see it go.

If the game dies, i really hope EPIC doesn't let those character models die. Use them for a new game with new lore.

EDIT: Let the current paragon moba just be an online mode for the game and just Keep expanding paragon itself into a new and bigger game outside of the moba genre.

Panther2103 · January 2018

Epic is following the Hi-Rez path.

Even though Epic used to be a giant, they now are making relatively niche games. Unfortunately the team sizes are probably also a lot smaller for them than they used to be.

Hi-Rez had this weird way of being insanely supportive of a game and instantly dumping it the second they release a new one. It's a bit better now but I remember being a HUGE fan of Global Agenda upon launch, they patched it almost daily, multiple times a week at the least, and the second Tribes Ascend came out GA lost almost all support. Same exact thing happened when SMITE came out, they dropped all TA support. Luckily SMITE got big enough to build teams that can work on that with Paladins at the same time, but I can see this exact same thing happening with Epic right now.

Fortnite was in alpha for a long ass time. They had little updates coming out occasionally but the game was on the burner for a long time. They released Paragon which had decent success, I could find games all the time and had quite a few friends who played. But then BR came out and BAM no Paragon updates hardly ever. Now they are saying that most of the team is going to Fortnite? The money Fortnite is raking in should be enough to hire new members to continue work on both. It just seems a bit weird they would just dump development over this fad.

AriesTiger · January 2018

IMHO the long term games and growth will be in MOBAs. Shooters are getting old now. Even streamers are losing their fanbase by the truckload. The more I play MOBAs and the more customizations they offer...I believe that's the future. The future is where you pay for cosmetics (while also having a few customizations for free) on a MOBA. A "pickup and play" game that has PVE and/or PVP elements and relatively little grinding other than the matches themselves (compared to the mindless MMO grindstyle.) The future is MOBAs hands down. At least for me.

Aeander · January 2018

Paragon was suffering well before that. Through multiple complete overhauls, it still fails to distinguish itself from the moba crowd and justify its own existence.

It is a game utterly devoid of soul, personality, meaningful lore, depth, or creativity. Character designs are generic in both look and kits. Dialogue is absent. Itemization is boring. Map design is a bog standard DotA/LoL map. It looks and feels like Smite's pretty, but vapid cousin. And while that cousin may be good for a fling, no one finds enough substance to stick around for the long haul.

Oh, and the one major innovation of the game, the card system, is a detriment to the game's competitive potential.

Panther2103 · January 2018

Aeander said:

Paragon was suffering well before that. Through multiple complete overhauls, it still fails to distinguish itself from the moba crowd and justify its own existence.

It is a game utterly devoid of soul, personality, meaningful lore, depth, or creativity. Character designs are generic in both look and kits. Dialogue is absent. Itemization is boring. Map design is a bog standard DotA/LoL map. It looks and feels like Smite's pretty, but vapid cousin. And while that cousin may be good for a fling, no one finds enough substance to stick around for the long haul.

Oh, and the one major innovation of the game, the card system, is a detriment to the game's competitive potential.

They could rework it to be in line with competitive potential. That's how Paladins was prior to the card rework as well but hirez managed to get that working alright.

BruceYee · January 2018

Sooooo Fortnite's success is the excuse they're gonna use to close Paragon?

I stopped playing Fortnite and Paragon because every time I log into the launcher there's a 1-2+gig update for one or both games every few days which became too much to deal with.

rojoArcueid · January 2018

BruceYee said:

Sooooo Fortnite's success is the excuse they're gonna use to close Paragon?

I stopped playing Fortnite and Paragon because every time I log into the launcher there's a 1-2+gig update for one or both games every few days which became too much to deal with.

That is unfortunate. After reading these news i don't feel like supporting Fortnite at the cost of possibly closing the game i wanted to play from Epic.

jdnewell · January 2018

Last time I checked in on paragon they still only had one map. Not even a different setting, but one single map since release.
Only one game mode since release.
No wonder they are hurting for players. They can release all the characters they want but the same exact map over and over got old.
Especially with games like smite having multiple game modes and different map skins.
Paragon needed to do something besides release a new toon every month to keep it interesting.

Aeander · January 2018

jdnewell said:

Last time I checked in on paragon they still only had one map. Not even a different setting, but one single map since release.
Only one game mode since release.
No wonder they are hurting for players. They can release all the characters they want but the same exact map over and over got old.
Especially with games like smite having multiple game modes and different map skins.
Paragon needed to do something besides release a new toon every month to keep it interesting.

A single map is fine if it is of a quality that the playerbase expects. Keep in mind that DotA popularized the genre off the back of a single map. In League of Legends, which has multiple maps, the traditional Summoner's Rift is played by a vast majority of the playerbase.

What is more telling for Paragon is that hero development has been slowed to a crawl. Their own #every3weeks has become a lie. The period between Drongo and Terra in particular was over 3 months (August 29th to December 12th). That is not healthy in a genre in which characters are effectively the bread and butter of the experience, far more than maps or game modes. Paragon does not have the extensive rosters of League of Legends, DotA2, and Smite. Hell, it doesn't even have the roster of Heroes of the Storm.

Mange1 · January 2018

Paragon shot itself in the foot, it did that massive card overhaul and failed to follow up with a remotely acceptable balance patch. They made the players wait months for one big balance pass that was very underwhelming, that's when I stepped away.

Dauzqul · January 2018

I think they completely removed themselves from Unreal Tournament 4 development, too.

Aeander · January 2018

Dauzqul said:

I think they completely removed themselves from Unreal Tournament 4 development, too.

Now THAT is a tragedy. UT was such a great arena shooter franchise. But it would seem that arena shooters as a genre are going the way of the dodo.

Wizardry · January 2018

Why would they move more members to Fortnite team when all it is now is a Battle Royale and NOTHING else.
I know Epic has the skills to make at least one new map here and there while these H1Z1's and PUBG's squander with 1 or 2 maps looking like amateur studios.So all they need is a small team to make a new map maybe 1 new weapon every few months and they will be long ahead of the competition.
Paragon imo is a better Moba style design than all the rest,the problem is they were LATE to the party,jumping on the bandwagon late is bad management.Create your own games instead of copying other genres.

Wizardry · January 2018

Dauzqul said:

I think they completely removed themselves from Unreal Tournament 4 development, too.

Well this i believe is sort of finished,the rest now is just people making maps.It was never intended to be a money making venture.Besides that the market for Esports is not very skilled,they are typically EASY games,Unreal Tournament takes incredible skills to be a top level pro.When a game takes trhat much skill and practice,players will run away as what happened years ago to the pro scene,they ran for CSGO and wanted to play more TEAM oriented pvp.

3dom · January 2018

Just remake it into third person shooter Warframe-style and I'll be there, spending money many years to come. Warframe is nice but I want more realistic characters.

aRtFuLThinG · January 2018

Mange1 said:

Paragon shot itself in the foot, it did that massive card overhaul and failed to follow up with a remotely acceptable balance patch. They made the players wait months for one big balance pass that was very underwhelming, that's when I stepped away.

Definitely.

Epic just cares too much about trying to make Paragon E-Sports compatible and keeps on messing with it's own, unique system that it originally has and made it mundane.

Not to mention that it keeps making players relearning everything every major system overhaul.

Aeander · January 2018

3dom said:

Just remake it into third person shooter Warframe-style and I'll be there, spending money many years to come. Warframe is nice but I want more realistic characters.

More realistic characters in a universe that has characters like Phase, Shinbi, Narbash, Howitzer, Iggy and Scorch, and Grim.Exe?

Paragon is far less visually and tonally consistent and immersive than Warframe is.

Scellow · January 2018

MOBA is a diying genre, it got over abused

They shouldn't be afraid to break the rules, sticking to the base genre is a stupid idea

JyveTurkey · January 2018

I loved the heck out of Paragon when it came out but the card revamp just completely killed it for me.

Elminzter · January 2018

imo, it's just a cover up for their own failures, face it paragon is dead, fortnite is just an excuse but it'll fail too that's after paragon has bite the dust...

Renoaku · January 2018

Would hate to see it go too Paragon is awesome needs to stay open or be given to a reputable company that can keep it open. The game just needs better development and changes, better skins and stuff.