I, Slayertip, Have officially given up hope for GGG.

So, here is somewhat a letter, or maybe a rant.... Letters to developers are almost rants anyway.

I have been a very expensive supporter of you guys for the past 2-3 years, I have no job, the money i get is money that i should spend wisely, I spent me last 500-600 grand on my house, and that was hard earned money, if you know my history.

I loved this company... note how i said Loved, instead of Love... past tense... it makes a difference...

This community is falling apart, and the approach that you developers are taking is... well, its kinda iffy at best.

I used to want to work for you guys for fudge sakes, i was always checking back at the website for any position that i could fill, tech support, art, whatever, i could probably fill it, given my education in both university and TAFE...

This is heartbreaking to see such a large amount of players, and i mean, a large amount, hating the recent expansion... mostly the Labyrinth. I know that you guys have said you would free it up a tiny bit, but when? how long is it going to take for you guys, who have a large sum of money from the numerous players who buy supporter packs almost daily.

I know that you guys claim that you read the forums, especially the feedback forums, but i kinda think thats a semi-lie... because no developer, who has spend many years on a game/product, wants to see 80% (it feels like that number, probably inaccurate) of the playerbase hating something you busted your arse on.

I am not quitting Path of Exile, but until GGG actually show some initiative, and instead of posting these little tidbits and false hopes of "yes, we will fix it" or "we are looking into it" onto the Path of Exile Subreddit... how about actually showing you will fix things, or improve onto things? you guys have a bigger team now, and alot more money then back in 2014... Please, Show us players that you care about us, and not the money in your pockets, sure... money is nice, when i got my first paycheck after returning home after fighting for 9 months straight, it was awesome, i know how you guys feel.

Make me love you guys again... make US love you guys again...

Leagues shouldnt have the goal of "finish challenges then leave for the rest of the league"... Leagues should have the feel of "WOW, this is so damn fun, i should keep playing and see what else happens, see if there are secrets in this leagues, maybe even find that brand new unique"

Perandus was an embarassment... it took away the Grind, the Hardcoreness... the only Hardcore moments was then my GPU almost exploded to the amount of FPS drops that occurred during my time in Perandus.

This community is what keeps me here, i love helping every single person that requires it... please don't make me lose any more hope than i already have now... im on the fence with you guys... and as many players are also...

Please.... show some initiative... talk to us, ask us what we want... because as far as i can see, you guys are making all the decisions without us knowing... we need to know whats happening...

Yours Sincerely,

Slayer Tip.

<3

Hate to be the resident white Knight here, but is there actually a lot of evidence that the majority of players dislike the latest new content? I've been seeing a lot of positive feedback. My impression is that both the forums and reddit actually compose a tiny percentage of the player base, based on a recent post from Chris. I'm not saying it's fine to ignore the top 1% in favour of the 99%, but it does mean your view might be biased (skewed might be a better word?) because you happen to be interacting with that 1%.

Honestly I've seen the downfall of "feedback based content" once already. I was on the music team for Homestuck, so, fairly passionate about that series. Followed a bunch of Andrew Hussie's (creator's) "development manifesto" posts and he pointed out how at some point relying on user input is just not feasible because of the sheer volume of it. There's a ton of noise out there, such that you could basically take any action and point to a massive constituent supporting that action. At that point there isn't even really a difference between user-based content and fully original content other than bloat and politics (same thing har har).

So that's what I believe GGG had done. They have gone back to the basics: making the game that they want to play. If you can't please everyone, you might as well please yourself. Because there's no sense scraping through mountains of differing ideas to try to please this short sighted player or that burned out player or another change resistant player or one easily bored player. Yes, it is important to listen to the voice of the community. But there is more than one way to communicate your approval than forum posts: play time, player retention, sales, player usage statistics, and so on, provide a massively greater volume of data than the words on a forum ever can. So GGG is forced to look at the bigger picture. Feedback in context. If you have a company that purely "listens to its players," you get Diablo III: no one liked nerfs, and the player base clamored endlessly for buffs, and so they got buff after buff after buff.

That doesn't mean that that made D3 a better game.

Vocal minority is always the most vocal.

They've always been a big patch of changes at a time rather than changing things the moment somebody complains though. Things like the lab for temp leagues are left as is so nobody gets a disadvantage or advantage halfway through the league because people complained. Thankfully it is almost end of the league and the people who were complaining and pointed out that lab or something or other was what made them quit for good will be back the moment the next temp leagues are out until they find something else to complain about.

And as adghar said, the people complaining are usually the minority. The rest are contently playing the game since they have nothing to complain about that gets them to come to the forum.

"

dickhole_mcghee wrote:

Vocal minority is always the most vocal.

Aye. What I know for a fact is that whether I'm the 20% or 80%, I love ascendancy and labyrinth. I was expecting to find it boring but it all turned out to be really fun. With my relatively limited time, I didn't feel like joining Perandus, so I can't comment on that part. But I know I've read countless posts talking about Cadiro as the greatest thing ever to hit PoE.

And I feel for the other 80/20%. I know different people have different tastes. It sucks when content is gated behind a playstyle you dislike. But I don't think there exists a solution to please all players, and I can't even think of any ways for GGG to compromise that much for changes anyway (maybe less punishing vs ES builds? Maybe a currency based alternative for asc points? I'm no game dev)

"

adghar wrote:

Hate to be the resident white Knight here, but is there actually a lot of evidence that the majority of players dislike the latest new content? I've been seeing a lot of positive feedback. My impression is that both the forums and reddit actually compose a tiny percentage of the player base, based on a recent post from Chris. I'm not saying it's fine to ignore the top 1% in favour of the 99%, but it does mean your view might be biased (skewed might be a better word?) because you happen to be interacting with that 1%.

Honestly I've seen the downfall of "feedback based content" once already. I was on the music team for Homestuck, so, fairly passionate about that series. Followed a bunch of Andrew Hussie's (creator's) "development manifesto" posts and he pointed out how at some point relying on user input is just not feasible because of the sheer volume of it. There's a ton of noise out there, such that you could basically take any action and point to a massive constituent supporting that action. At that point there isn't even really a difference between user-based content and fully original content other than bloat and politics (same thing har har).

So that's what I believe GGG had done. They have gone back to the basics: making the game that they want to play. If you can't please everyone, you might as well please yourself. Because there's no sense scraping through mountains of differing ideas to try to please this short sighted player or that burned out player or another change resistant player or one easily bored player. Yes, it is important to listen to the voice of the community. But there is more than one way to communicate your approval than forum posts: play time, player retention, sales, player usage statistics, and so on, provide a massively greater volume of data than the words on a forum ever can. So GGG is forced to look at the bigger picture. Feedback in context. If you have a company that purely "listens to its players," you get Diablo III: no one liked nerfs, and the player base clamored endlessly for buffs, and so they got buff after buff after buff.

That doesn't mean that that made D3 a better game.

If there is one thing im sick of, is people talking about D3 in this forum... i mean, sure, they can be somewhat comparable, but please, don't talk about a different game, or an irrelevant game, in a forum that doesnt even relate to that game.. >_>

"

adghar wrote:

"

dickhole_mcghee wrote:

Vocal minority is always the most vocal.

Aye. What I know for a fact is that whether I'm the 20% or 80%, I love ascendancy and labyrinth. I was expecting to find it boring but it all turned out to be really fun. With my relatively limited time, I didn't feel like joining Perandus, so I can't comment on that part. But I know I've read countless posts talking about Cadiro as the greatest thing ever to hit PoE.

And I feel for the other 80/20%. I know different people have different tastes. It sucks when content is gated behind a playstyle you dislike. But I don't think there exists a solution to please all players, and I can't even think of any ways for GGG to compromise that much for changes anyway (maybe less punishing vs ES builds? Maybe a currency based alternative for asc points? I'm no game dev)

I feel as though the people complaining about the lab are also assuming that the correct enchantment for your build is a necessity now as well. The current challenges probably don't help matters. As soon as I saw that the enchantments were RNG I realized that getting that perfect enchantment on your boots gloves and helmet was something you only do if you character was never going to upgrade again. It is something extremely end game for us to do. Otherwise, it is also something to do with white 4l's to sell or craft once a popular or needed enchantment shows up.

I found it fairly relevant. PoE doesn't seem old enough or varied in its strategy enough for there to be a real consistent precedent of game design hurt by pandering. So one looks to similar games for precedent. And I'm not really familiar with any real disappointing pandering in the game industry except D3.

LoL maybe? But people have been asking for Evelynn buffs forever now and Riot doesn't listen at all.

I guess the moral of the story is that I need to play more games so that I don't fall to old cliches in feedback discussion??

(Speaking of cliches: poe is worse than hitler. There, Godwins law finished, ou may now go about your business as usual)

"

adghar wrote:

I found it fairly relevant. PoE doesn't seem old enough or varied in its strategy enough for there to be a real consistent precedent of game design hurt by pandering. So one looks to similar games for precedent. And I'm not really familiar with any real disappointing pandering in the game industry except D3.

LoL maybe? But people have been asking for Evelynn buffs forever now and Riot doesn't listen at all.

I guess the moral of the story is that I need to play more games so that I don't fall to old cliches in feedback discussion??

(Speaking of cliches: poe is worse than hitler. There, Godwins law finished, ou may now go about your business as usual)

Yeah, there is a lot of valid comparing and contrasting that goes on because D3 is the most readily available example to contend with.

Make the darts fire 50% less, and the spinny blade totems 25% slower, and balanced trap damage to all build life types, and I am totally OK with what the Lab is.