Also Garfield leaving the dev team is a good thing. So many of his design philosophies are terrible. "RNG is good because it helps new players" like seriously?
Yeah, he does love him some RNG.
Which, btw, in Artifact fucking suuuuuuuuuuucks.
I get what he means. I do. I just don't think his departure at the current time, and the following actions (or lack thereof) from Valve inspire very much confidence in the game, it's future, and their overall plans. I don't think Garfield needed to stay on indefinitely, but he should've at the very least stayed on to try to weather the storm, and him being laid off is a bad look.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I think the issue is that we'd need a post-mortem with a lot of behind-the-scenes info to really answer which of us is more... not "right", but... Accurate? I guess? :) It may be he's consulting on a 4th expansion pack for free right now, after having set-up the first 3 before leaving. It may be that Valve are entirely reworking whatever expansions they already made because the feedback about RNG has been so atrocious. I think the lack of communication is what hurts the most - even a statement from Valve saying they enjoyed working with Garfield and Artifact news is coming soon would've helped a tremendous amount. As it is "In it for the long haul" is the new "These things, they take time". :/