Does always on-line and trade-centric make PoE better or worse?

Having been here since CB PoE and witnessing it all I have very mixed feelings on the whole of trading in PoE. Let's right away clear the air, I don't want this thread to degrade into a "PoE needs an auction house" debate. The mechanics of trading have been discussed/argued to death already and we all know that GGG is against having an AH so I consider that aspect of trading to be dead and buried (so please don't waste text on that).

What I would like to discuss is what "A Former Ruler of Wraeclast" stated in another arpg forum:

Why Wolcen over PoE as an ARPG, you ask? Two words, friends: offline mode.

The assertion he (we're pretty sure who Littleknife is) claims is that with PoE being a free-to-play online only arpg that players are going to need to interact with each other (trade) and maybe party play (if that can even be done with such poor Internet performance) so that the devs are setting the drop rates based on the entire player base of items found or crafted and that necessitates trading in order to advance a build to high endgame levels. That is mostly true (level 100 SSF players will disagree) for the 98% who aren't no-lifing or streaming to make money off of PoE. I don't disagree on that point, for example if I want a 6-link item trading for it is vastly easier than crafting or praying for a drop.

But to the point of having an off-line mode for easy solo play and get a more enjoyable experience for time played because the devs have to tune their arpg with an eye toward more richer drops, that is a purely personal viewpoint and goes to the fact that Littleknife is a self-proclaimed non-competitive player. As a casual player myself I do get an overall negative feeling from the PoE players that get to 95 in the first couple of weeks of a new league as in "you aren't to level 90 yet, wtf is wrong with you". That, coupled with the fact that drop quality has to be lower because PoE is an online only arpg the devs must not allow the game economy to get flooded with T1 gear and thus wreck the gear chase. Knowing this before beginning play (new players) is important so that they can decide if PoE is a good fit for what they expect to get out of playing here instead of another arpg that does allow off-line play.

One thing Littleknife does touch on (which isn't new) is that quality of play (QoP) is hugely important to online playing satisfaction and we can all agree that GGG has had (and still has) a terrible track record on this. No debating this, everyone wishes PoE had a high quality commercial game engine as Wolcen does.

But does that mean Wolcen will be better than PoE or Grim Dawn or any other arpg of this type, it's again an individual judgement call based on how much time we want to devote to playing any arpg. There is no simple answer. Littleknife's casual playing is suited more to an off-line arpg, but that doesn't make Wolcen better than PoE. It just means Wolcen has better QoP (most likey) and is not a better product overall just because Internet latency is taken out of the QoP equation. As to PoE I can personally attest to my awful history of bad QoP over the years and only now with enough hardware upgrades and finally with the jump to Windows 10 I finally get 200 fps much of the time. I should have been able to achieve better QoP on Windows 7 from day 1 of Lockstep but never did and knowing the history of GGG as to why they didn't licence a commercial game engine at their start is of no comfort to me. GGG will never have the high QoP of any arpg using a commercial game engine and that's a fact. We understand this and cope with it as best we can if we desire to continue playing or we eventually throw in the towel and quit.

I have no clue if Wolcen has a better trade mechanism. Since PoE trade chat is the worst I should be safe to assume it will be much better than PoE. GGG has certainly been avoiding making any major changes out of fear that if it alters our item chasing that long term playing of PoE could be over and having us "play PoE forever" would end (and so would GGG). That's a major concern for GGG founders deciding to go with the "free to play" business model. If we're not playing/slaving PoE weekly then we're not buying mtx and it's goodbye GGG.

Has the PoE community become toxic? Does our forum rants about this or that part of PoE being garbage damage the PoE community? My view is that "one man's meat is another man's poison" and that each player has to decide for themselves. Certainly GGG needs to improve in many ways but many of Littleknife's talking points are like trying to compare apples to oranges. Or maybe he's just sour 'cause GGG isn't coding PoE in the way he would most want to be playing. A fancy title doesn't impress me one bit. But he's wasn't the first and will not be the last to quit PoE over GGG's design choices.

1. Why do you care what he does with his time now?

2. Gaming isnt binary. Room for all kinds of diversity.

3. PoE is a live service game. Wolcen may not be. There is no guarantee they will continue to support and expand the game. That is fine, it works for games like Death Stranding or Outer Worlds, or any other one-shot game. I tend to prefer updates but again there is room for all kinds.

4. Every design decision GGG makes, I believe, tries to take into account the largest percentage of players (including console) This means that there will always be those that dont like what is being done, or the direction it goes. Careful thinking that the forums or reddit represents more than it does.

5. PoE will be fine, Wolcen by all accounts and numbers, seems to have performed above their expectations financially. D3 is one of the most profitable games of all-time, and D4 will likely follow that.

What does this all mean in the end?

Charan isnt a god, he is a so-so writer that inherited money from his estranged father, has health issues, and likes to project quite a bit via video game forums and embracing the whale life. Good for him, no hate here, but damn take him off the pedestal. He still puts on pants one leg at a time (presumably)

The Arpg market has room for many developers, and choice should be embraced. I respect everyone that likes Grim Dawn or PoE, or Torchlight, or D3, or Wolcen, or....*gasp all of them?!?

Edit: spelling and grammar, phone OP

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DarthSki44 wrote:

4. Every design decision GGG makes, I believe, tries to take into account the largest percentage of players (including console) This means that there will always be those that dont like what is being done, or the direction it goes. Careful thinking that the forums or reddit represents more than it does.

Didn't they say at one point under 5% of players beat uber elder?

Compared with end content of delve, betrayal, etc. uber elder isn't even that hard.

I think its fair to say GGG makes a lot of decisions for a small cadre of super devoted players.

And hell, Im not complaining, their research may show those are the people supporting poe, but I must respectfully disagree with the idea they care about the largest percentage of players.

Largest percent of paying players... maybe.

It gives it more longevity, that's for sure.

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trixxar wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

4. Every design decision GGG makes, I believe, tries to take into account the largest percentage of players (including console) This means that there will always be those that dont like what is being done, or the direction it goes. Careful thinking that the forums or reddit represents more than it does.

Didn't they say at one point under 5% of players beat uber elder?

Compared with end content of delve, betrayal, etc. uber elder isn't even that hard.

I think its fair to say GGG makes a lot of decisions for a small cadre of super devoted players.

And hell, Im not complaining, their research may show those are the people supporting poe, but I must respectfully disagree with the idea they care about the largest percentage of players.

Largest percent of paying players... maybe.

That's interesting. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "caring", but essentially you think GGG would prefer to design the game around, lets say 10k players that contribute often?

Personally I don't think you are drawing a correlation correctly from spending habits and retention, to endgame content.

So yeah, 95+% didn't kill Uber Elder, but if they were happy doing whatever else and spending money, I'm not sure that GGG cares that much.

Originally posted by Littleknife:

I think this argument of 'PoE or Wolcen' is genuinely moot, but if it must be made, then for me 'one has offline mode and the other doesn't' is the decider.

I was reacting, not acting. For a little while there I saw a spurt of Wolcen v PoE discussions, and wanted to contribute. Or, as aggromagnet so aptly put it, make a novella out of a minor issue. Which is, honestly, all most writing is.

And this point of Wolcen's offline being key to me is still true, given I'm doing very little this weekend gaming-wise beyond playing it offline and cursing the B key's effect on my funds (Purifiers will know what I'm talking about). I saw the furore about Wolcen's release and was like, duh? PoE does the same damn thing regularly -- maybe not to the same extent but I've seen rougher landings of PoE league/update deployments than Wolcen's. Anyone who was here in August 2013 should remember the CDN debacle based around a huge graphical update. The game was pretty much borked for days. With absolutely no alternative. GGG had to release a torrent of the game's current build after a day or so of crisis. Situations like that made me yearn for an offline version of my absolute favourite game in the world. Now I have one, and I'm one happy pig in shit tbh. Second honeymoon, Boem? Of course. But this is the joy of gaming, isn't it? The honeymoon phase never has to end. All you have to do is not move in together, exchange rings, create a joint bank account, and say stupid things like 'I take this game to the exclusion of all others'. Beta-hopping is a thing. My only mistake for forgetting this. PoE isn't Sarah Marshall, but maybe it should be.


Anyway, if you want to engage with my argument, Arrowneous (pronounced something close to'erroneous' right? Suddenly appropriate!), how about you do that where I posted it and not just casually link to it as though expecting people to go read it? You're either: a) furthering your argument by way of piggybacking on mine when you should be just making your own; or b) luring me back here with all the subtlety of a dump truck on a Ritalin tear. Or both. But little else.

Shameless of you, sir. Shameless. Don't go linking textual walls; please stick to the swords and uniques that you're used to.

Trade makes the game somewhat multiplayer. It's nice to save up for an item and trade for it. I say somewhat multiplayer because POE to me feels mostly like a single player game like dark souls that has multiplayer features.

Online only is only a problem for people with bad internet. In major countries the internet is like electricity. It has to always be on because most businesses and homes use it for work and entertainment. Only time internet goes out is if the power goes out.

I have been here as long as you have Arrow.
I have both games, and like both.
Metamorph was the first trade league I have played in since Turmoil, mostly because I found a 5EX item in SSF and moved over to sell it and fund a couple of builds.
The offline mode of Wolcen is a great feature and I had no issues beta funding this game (what, 3 years ago now?), just as I did with PoE roughly 8 years ago.
Wolcen won't kill PoE, but it will create a bit of competition, which can be healthy.

i would like trade to be in a position where players take the efforts of offering their whealth to buy something only if they see no other way of getting the same item ingame.

there needs to be a choice to either get it ingame or from other players.
=> trade needs to be more difficult, ggg needs to find other ways of giving players the illusion their item is worth something than offering it to other players.

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like charan, i had my doubts about online only games and still have. you don't own something for the money you spend. if thes servers go down you're left with nothing.

poe has been the first try to play a online only game for me and so far it worked out fine. in fact, if they closed down the world realm tomorrow i would be ok with it cause i had a great time so far and don't regret any dollar i gave ggg for their efforts.

never seen a bunch of dedicated developers like chris and his team. they have a clear vision of what they want and so far even tencent couldn't convince them to somehow change their course.

For offline mode, yes it would be nice, but it would also be VERY niche. There's no way they could let offline players then take their characters online, so with this first point there's no reason to work on an offline mode, what money would be gained by it? Secondly, having an offline mode would mean the entire game, all it's files, and it's source code would have to be on client side. Yes it would be encrypted, but it's there to be cracked, and any sort of hacking / cheats for online mode would be made a lot easier.

Trade-centric item drops is pretty much needed. You don't need T1 ultra rare items to get to the endgame, so having those exist as chase items, as a feeling that you can always upgrade is VERY helpful in player retention.

And on that, I will say that trade is NOT needed to get into late endgame. I started a private league for a buddy and myself (he didn't play) so I SSF'd up to Siris 7 within two weeks, on a 5 link, as melee (double strike). I mean I'm sold, I'll be SSF starting next league for sure.

So, online only doesn't *really* make PoE better in my opinion, but it doesn't make it worse either (unless your connection sucks). I do have a dream though that one day we'll get an offline client juuuuuuuuust in case the world blows up. And I feel the drops are actually fine, even in SSF.