We are seeing first hand why GGG needs to step in..

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goetzjam wrote:

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You are simply being an absolute entitled, petulant, spoiled brat at this point if you seriously think that GGG should have only catered to hardcore players and remain small time. This is honestly the type of behavior that makes people want to vomit with fury. GGG has not 'sold' out. They made the game more accessible to the every day player, while also adding more higher tier gameplay for those who want to actually play the game all the way. There are numerous options for endgame including Shaper, Guardians, Uber Atziri, and Uber Lab.

Yeah God forbid I hold them to the design they purposed back in closed\open beta, I mean fuck me for wanting the game to still remain enjoyable for people like me. There is a difference between making the game more accessible and making power + items more accessible and that is what I am complaining about, the later, not the former.

Making the game more accessible would be things like helping people progress past act 1, streamlining the leveling\quest experience, stuff that new players (aka players that would have never reached maps in the first place) would need. Buffing drop rates, adding diviners boxes that don't follow the rules, adding massive power creep in the form of AC classes without challenge to balance it off is all changes that are irrelevant to making the game more accessible, its all about making the game and its content easier.


You and other thing 5-6 bosses are the end all be all and that its ok to add massive power creep and item accessibility because of those bosses, it absolutely is not. Those bosses should be things people work towards, sure, but they shouldn't be the only thing "challenging about the game" and you shouldn't be able to trivialize them with such a low investment cost. I mean hell even the rarer rewards, like disfavor, which is probably the most powerful 2 handed unique weapon and the only weapon really people would use in the temp leagues in an ideal world, is far easier to get from div cards, then it is to even attempt uber atziri and it gives you the item, guaranteed. Part of the balance of creating div cards was to have appropriate challenges so that these boss specific loots were rewarding to do so, now you need to ask why anyone would bother doing uber atziri, especially in a hardcore setting when the chest are worth basically nothing the mask are "ok, but not extremely high es" and the other two rewards are the rarest drops, one of which is (as I personally know) not a hard to get set even as early as 6 days into a hardcore league.


So by all means sit on whatever chair you want, you are absolutely wrong that GGG has done no wrong. GGG absolutely has, one of the largest and most important aspects of a league reset is economy and item accessibility, when one of the rarest and most powerful items is acquired in less then a week, what goal is there next? Whats the purpose of playing in the temp leagues when item accessibility and power is so high that we are essentially playing d3?

As a longer term player I have no idea why you can't see its worst off now then it was around tempest, GGG can make all the improvements they want to the performance and other things, but if they fail to keep the game rewarding for players like me then they will lose further support from players like me and Chris said on the q\a that we long term supporters were the most important demographic to them, I'm asking they provide that and make the quest for power, items, links, ect meaningful again.

"

It's a sad state, so the trade system should be improved and regulated (even by introducing more value via recipes and more currency sinks)...

You are crazy if you think GGG is going to regulate trade. You guys all seem to love this new item accessibility and the fact it attracted a shitty playerbase, deal with the consequences.

You are no longer the target audience. Welcome to the gaming industry. GGG has realized they can make more money off other people then you who are extremely fickle in what you want in the first place. All they have to do is provide the carrot.

If the other 95% of the population (and you are an extreme minority) is enjoying the game and spending money in the game because they are enjoying the game, GGG and every other sane gaming company is going to cater to that 95%. Get over it. The game grew, Chris wants to grow the game, and wants to expand the vision of the game. It's not like Atziri is BiS for every build, it's BiS for exactly one playstyle, which is 2H melee. There are still plenty of other playstyles that require other types of items. Sure it's faster to cap out one character, just roll another one. Why is that such a bad thing?

You seem to have a few fixed views, but none the less, you did made great points.

At the moment, due to drop rate being more than great, I feel that they preferred to buff drop rates so that trade even without having improvements would not present a huge problem...

As we no longer are on different realms, why is it so bad to just give an opportunity for a few asynchronous trades?

Regarding the small instant buy solution, they could expect people to price items in every currency up to chaos orbs - hell make it a requirement - and also keep the items available for a set amount of time for a different set amount of every currency/or a specific one instead...

You do know that the trade interaction via the beautiful AH that xyz is - and it is an off game AH let's be fair about it - should it be kept like that and help GGG disregard the responsibility that in game trade is an underwhelming experience, and a flop regarding a "core aspect" of the game.

The community could change if you offer incentives to do so, and confer advantages on being helpful toward others...

I asked how many time all you traders regarded the buyer as a fellow community player that needed help instead of another scammer/flipper/manipulator that makes you feel that you just did a huge mistake trading the item just to be listed for a different price on the same AH?

Human interaction via trading is also as great as an experience if the community members want that - I don't sell mainly because I'm a hoarder, but due to those nice flippers/scammers/manipulators I prefer to vendor stuff that I don't use, and maybe once in a blue moon buy something from traders and most of the time overpay (sometimes it helps to disregard those nasty aspects by feeling that you maybe helped another player towards his goal)...

And the human interaction more than 90% of the times results in copy-pasted script, my/your ho, t4t/thx - so the element of relating to another person isn't even there...

I still want a better experience regarding trade and it should be provided as it was touted a long time ago and they just seem to not pick a side - either via improving trading, either via disregarding it and further improve SSF.

By the way, divination boxes should follow preset rules, and divination cards too, and at least those for uniques that drop from specific encounters (Atziri's Disfavour is one of them), should require an epic monster fight - they should make a divination box add a few mods to all the mobs inside, and have them very dangerous for the players...

PS: Even some casual n00bs could bother themselves with the most expensive supporter packs, or buy a few 1000$ packs - I also have a few friends that could fork a lot more, God knows they overdid it on Star Citizen - but the incentive isn't there, as we still have a rollercoaster ride regarding performance optimisations, balance, efficiency of defensive mechanics, unfinished story, tuning the difficulty of the content (lots of cool one shots), balancing around instant log out, a trade system that is clunky and unsatisfactory, severe lack of QoL and polishing - all that renders this game to an effective BETA state, and it seems it will go at a snail pace for a lot more time, so why bother supporting them more if your support doesn't keep the game "fun" enough for you?

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OhhPaige wrote:

2) GGG steps in & adds some sort of "trading hub"/auction house in-game. This way if you want to post an Exalt for 45 chaos, go ahead because I'd love to buy it. You would then not have the power of anonymity & ignoring whispers, which would make this problem go away instantly.

This would indeed solve the issue. A GGG system which caps the maximum sale price to the advertised price and the seller can't withdraw their item from sale. Of course this game doesn't use a single currency so it gets murky with exchange rates fluctuating.

Can then add a way to view historical sale data for each item over the last 21 or so days.

"

allbusiness wrote:

You are no longer the target audience. Welcome to the gaming industry. GGG has realized they can make more money off other people then you who are extremely fickle in what you want in the first place. All they have to do is provide the carrot.

If the other 95% of the population (and you are an extreme minority) is enjoying the game and spending money in the game because they are enjoying the game, GGG and every other sane gaming company is going to cater to that 95%. Get over it. The game grew, Chris wants to grow the game, and wants to expand the vision of the game. It's not like Atziri is BiS for every build, it's BiS for exactly one playstyle, which is 2H melee. There are still plenty of other playstyles that require other types of items. Sure it's faster to cap out one character, just roll another one. Why is that such a bad thing?

Its funny because Chris said basically the exact OPPOSITE of this in a recent interview... That the most important segment of the player base is the "devoted vocal fanbase from many years ago" and that they will not compromise that group's experience to attract the casual gamer, or tone down the difficulty to increase the playerbase and $$$.

See here (~the 4:45 mark is where this bit starts)

^Chris is a master fisher though.

Hes probably using esoteric lure on that pod-cast.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Docbp87 wrote:

"

allbusiness wrote:

You are no longer the target audience. Welcome to the gaming industry. GGG has realized they can make more money off other people then you who are extremely fickle in what you want in the first place. All they have to do is provide the carrot.

If the other 95% of the population (and you are an extreme minority) is enjoying the game and spending money in the game because they are enjoying the game, GGG and every other sane gaming company is going to cater to that 95%. Get over it. The game grew, Chris wants to grow the game, and wants to expand the vision of the game. It's not like Atziri is BiS for every build, it's BiS for exactly one playstyle, which is 2H melee. There are still plenty of other playstyles that require other types of items. Sure it's faster to cap out one character, just roll another one. Why is that such a bad thing?

Its funny because Chris said basically the exact OPPOSITE of this in a recent interview... That the most important segment of the player base is the "devoted vocal fanbase from many years ago" and that they will not compromise that group's experience to attract the casual gamer, or tone down the difficulty to increase the playerbase and $$$.

See here (~the 4:45 mark is where this bit starts)

It reminds of do what preacher says instead of doing what preacher does...

Do you remember those aspects that you "devoted vocal fanbase from many years ago" asked to be resolved, and Charan was one of the most vocal voice that raised some of the best topics around this forum, and how many did they really tackled in a timely manner?

Since GGG grown a lot, they should had more people focused not only on improving technical problems and providing new content on a quarterly basis, but balance, trade, QoL and polishing improvements that are needed for PoE to feel like a finished product, and I'm sorry to say, they still have lots of work ahead...

The game never felt truly difficult as you always had broken skills/mechanics to trivialise content, and "smart" gameplay rewards those that use them - skill play is needed only when dealing with more mechanical fights, and the rest of the game remains a "clear screens while watching TV" with the ocasional one shot due to "pop the weasel" mechanics...

It holds interest when hoarding, but other than that, you get very few incentives to make you tackle the high end content - reaching 100 is easier/faster when running medium-high difficult content, trading presumes skill when scamming/flipping or even manipulating the market by various interest groups, balance seems to always be skewed on a quarterly basis, we lack lots of polishing and QoL features, and also there still rise technical problems...

Of course they made lots of improments, and they also got the end game content more tuned towards the casual n00bs, but if you had a bit of skill, played meta, you could have pushed for the end game fairly easy, and that is a personal view from a casual n00b that plays the game since 1.3.0...

It never the less remains one of the most beautiful journeys, and the experience of the lore and the game as a whole is one of the best in aRPG, but they could and should improve more a bit faster, as adding new content could only keep us satisfied so much...

"

Docbp87 wrote:

"

allbusiness wrote:

You are no longer the target audience. Welcome to the gaming industry. GGG has realized they can make more money off other people then you who are extremely fickle in what you want in the first place. All they have to do is provide the carrot.

If the other 95% of the population (and you are an extreme minority) is enjoying the game and spending money in the game because they are enjoying the game, GGG and every other sane gaming company is going to cater to that 95%. Get over it. The game grew, Chris wants to grow the game, and wants to expand the vision of the game. It's not like Atziri is BiS for every build, it's BiS for exactly one playstyle, which is 2H melee. There are still plenty of other playstyles that require other types of items. Sure it's faster to cap out one character, just roll another one. Why is that such a bad thing?

Its funny because Chris said basically the exact OPPOSITE of this in a recent interview... That the most important segment of the player base is the "devoted vocal fanbase from many years ago" and that they will not compromise that group's experience to attract the casual gamer, or tone down the difficulty to increase the playerbase and $$$.

See here (~the 4:45 mark is where this bit starts)

Chris also argued with me and many other people who have some level of networking experience that desync was impossible to fix, and that a smooth and fast response time was not possible under the 'wait for server' method.

We all know how that turned out, and who was right in the end.


Not just that, there is no 'toning down the game', the game is harder at red tiers and up than ever. You fuck up even once, and you die. Period. The damage scaling has gone to astronomical levels on mobs, so I'm not sure where people get this idea that the game is 'ez mode' at all. It's just merely much easier to reach red maps than ever before, and actually progress to the highest tiers. The highest tier bosses are still absurdly hard for the vast majority of players and builds, and not many of them (including me until usually towards the very end of the ladder) will ever get to them.


Point being, what Chris and GGG says, and what they do are two very different things. And I don't fault the GGG team one bit. Someone like Goetz will never be satisfied with the game, ever. He will always ask for more of a challenge, he will ask for more grind, more this and that, and that's simply because he has an unrealistic amount of time available to him. You cannot balance the game solely around someone like him, or Snorkle who plays like 16 hours a day, or I_NO who has unlimited time. Even games like DotA are not balanced solely around competitive play (I know, I'm a legit 6k+ player in that game and I used to work with IceFrog's balancing team back in the 5.xx days of DotA allstars). You have to make your game more accessible, more user friendly, appealing to play. You can't make money otherwise. It's stupid to think you can just cater to literally maybe 1-3% of the gaming population and be successful.


People who have zero experience in actual game development literally will never understand why decisions have to be made. You can't make a game without money. You can't put in all the cool features, put in QoL improvements, etc. without money. People simply demand, and yet they don't understand that you can't have everything the way you particularly want it. It's the same reason why the VR market is currently so niche and crashing. People there think you should have full blown AAA quality games with a huge storyline, skill tree, over arching themes, polished gameplay, etc. on bleeding edge technology.

"

allbusiness wrote:

Point being, what Chris and GGG says, and what they do are two very different things. And I don't fault the GGG team one bit. Someone like Goetz will never be satisfied with the game, ever. He will always ask for more of a challenge, he will ask for more grind, more this and that, and that's simply because he has an unrealistic amount of time available to him. You cannot balance the game solely around someone like him, or Snorkle who plays like 16 hours a day, or I_NO who has unlimited time. Even games like DotA are not balanced solely around competitive play (I know, I'm a legit 6k+ player in that game and I used to work with IceFrog's balancing team back in the 5.xx days of DotA allstars). You have to make your game more accessible, more user friendly, appealing to play. You can't make money otherwise. It's stupid to think you can just cater to literally maybe 1-3% of the gaming population and be successful.


People who have zero experience in actual game development literally will never understand why decisions have to be made. You can't make a game without money. You can't put in all the cool features, put in QoL improvements, etc. without money. People simply demand, and yet they don't understand that you can't have everything the way you particularly want it. It's the same reason why the VR market is currently so niche and crashing. People there think you should have full blown AAA quality games with a huge storyline, skill tree, over arching themes, polished gameplay, etc. on bleeding edge technology.

That is just false, I removed all of my supporter packs from being showcased because I'm not happy with the direction the game has been going for a while and I don't feel like its important to showcase them when discussing issues about the game.

However, when I enjoy the game and play the game for a good amount of time I am willing and able to spend a corresponding amount into the game in terms of support. Will I always want more in terms of general improvements to the game, sure, but to say I wouldn't be satisfied with the content\balance enough to play the game and enjoy it isn't true.

In terms of unrealistic amount of time available, again that isn't true, I work 35-40 hours a week, is the rest of the time available for sleeping, playing, watching tv, eating, ect, sure would I dump a good amount into game\games, sure.

I played a good amount in tempest, a league that contained div cards and ways to acquire gear and power easier, but when you look at everything GGG has done to make power, gear and the game overall easier, it makes a player like me sad, a player that fits into the group that Chris said they care about the most. I can't speak for all players in that group, but as a player in that group, I can say what Chris says is different then their actions they have done.

You can design a game that is fun for casual players, but still contains enough for the hardcore playerbase. Especially in a game like this, which has perm leagues, that literally are the solution to "i dont have time to invest", so the limitation of time is no longer a factor in terms of getting access to power\gear. Furthermore, GGG's structure of getting money further supports less, but more, rather then more sales, but less at a lessor value. Supporter packs, higher cost of mtx, ect all fit the mentality of people that would invest more. Furthermore, its much harder to acquire customers, then it is to keep the customers you have happy.


This game was funded by players like me and was created for players like me, now you are saying its not longer possible for GGG to cater to people like me, which is false.

Even as drastic of a thing like enabling us to create custom leagues where we can change aspects we don't like or grab aspects that we do might be enough to keep our money into the game.

I think what people fail to realize is that players like myself have made concessions after concessions in terms of what we want in order for the game to have a larger appeal and there has been nothing done to increase the enjoyment of players like myself. We even gave up our own separate designed temp league...in order for GGG to follow their vision and goals closer.

Trading works by mostly ripping people off... sorry to tell you this but that's how capitalism works my friend. GGG has the trading system in place for a reason and there's no reason to change it now just because you feel like you're getting ripped off.

I feel like a ton of items are not properly priced and it's a hindrance to me but I also know it's a necessity.

I'm no where near rich or anything or have the best gear or all my challenges done but that's because I'm not good at the game but I also understand this game caters more to the hardcore gamer than it does me and that's perfectly fine. I won't stop playing because it's harder for me to get into the game. I will learn everything i need to learn in due time ans become better. I'm in no rush