Streamer priority confirmed. PoE is free to play, so play it for free, but Boycott GGG.

its so funny to see clips with streamers fight/die/win trialmasters while i never seen/found any trialmasters so far...

when nerf streamer rng? or its oldest privilege that cant be removed?

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Nah. It plays perfectly well with $40-60. After that you see greatly diminishing returns on any more tabs.

When playing league I would want to use about a dozen premium tabs (400), currency tab (75), map tab (150), fragment tab (75). Which is 700 points, on sale for about $55. So that fits nicely into Shagsbeard's estimate. However, when playing standard what I'd minimally want to use would be much closer to $100 to $150 estimate.

So the point I'm trying to make is that I think that both estimates are correct. It just depends on whether one is talking about league or standard play.

Sure. I accept that. But to claim you need to drop $100-$150 to make the game playable isn't true at all. You might "want" more tabs. That's a whole different story than "need" more tabs. I think you pretty much need the special tabs... at least currency, maps and frags.

edit: belted this one out on the tablet; forgive any tappos, please.

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I haven't even weighed in on the latest eyeroller: premium cursors. They're distractingly overcooked, which is both in lockstep with the game's excess-is-a-myth design philosophy and yet garish to a point of silliness.

The high contrast freebie was utterly unavoidable given the eyestrain the standard cursor can induce, so at least they recognised that much. I still feel the game has cunningly blurred QoL and essential, but that's been true for a long time.

What is no longer true is that this risky skating between clear QoL upgrades and implicit cost of playing the game comfortably is buffered by the grace afforded an independent studio genuinely committed to its unlikely, almost self-defeating ethics in an inherently unethical business. Take that safety net away and you're just another self-aware GaaS pusher committed to hooking low self-control players with minimal effort and slicing away tiny slivers of their willpower in the form of seasonal "must have" mtxes and far less infrequent "premium aesthetic" ones. Once a player can no longer clearly see the difference, it's game over.

We have seen SO many suggestions for not just mtxes but other creative, ethically sound means of generating wealth for GGG over the years, but I get it now. Some were good, most were not, but none of them fit within this achingly well-calibrated process of tranforming a player into a regular supporter: whole game is free, playing it comfortably is not, thanks for your support, why not buy a pet or two with that leftover GGGold, or maybe some lootboxes? They're value for money, as you can see from our totally not legally required breakdown of contents...Eh, another hideout decoration duplicate? just one more pull, you'll get that rare next time...

Not saying it works on everyone (I can hear some of you protesting your staunch stance to only buy the bare necessities rather loudly from here) but if the gacha gimmick didn't make them money they'd have dumped it by now. And if its making them money, that means it's not just something people spend their leftover supporter GGGold on.

Supporters give GGG money specifically to roll gacha in PoE.

One last angle to complete this little geometric abomination: people always called supporters "donors". I corrected them ad nauseum but even now you see it. For whatever reason, supporting a non pay to win f2p game voluntarily is synonymous with a charitable act. Well, okay, when you put it that way, I can kind of see it. And don't charities run essentially gambling games to raise money? Raffles, lucky door prizes, etc. And isn't a loot box just like that? Put in a little money to get a chance to win something neat while supporting what you love? You KNOW that money is going towards, say, the local sports club or your community church or a support group for that most beloved class of loser, The Less Advantaged...sure, why not. It's less than a cup of coffee a day...

But GGG were never a charity and PoE was never a Worthy Cause. If you supported above and beyond the price of entry and upkeep it was because you love ARPGs and this mob were doing it right. They still filed tax returns that declared a profit; they still sold products with clear pricetags and contents; they still had no goal loftier than using the latter to bolster the former. And buying lootboxes is not some harmless flutter to help some greater good.

And this was all true BEFORE Tencent bought GGG, before GGG slumped further and further into a model of overt, exploitative GaaS malpractice, if that isn't tautology itself. Before they stepped over that line, willingly, for money, and then tried to step back. They all know, Chris most definitely, that there are some things you can't unsay or undo, because not everyone will sell their soul to keep Mapping. And honestly, who'd want so cheap a soul anyway? There's so little achievement in it, like Don Draper selling tobacco with his brilliant advertising wit. But it's not Don Draper I think of when I contemplate GGG these days (mercifully rare occurence) -- it's Captain Ahab, but only if Melville had been less of a literary genius and merely wrote dimestore trash in which there's always a bigger Moby Dick and the poignancy of Ahab's pathetic cry, "from hell's heart I stab at thee!" is about as profound in its predictable reusage as "not even death can save you from me".

[cue twelve string strum...]

It's the day I stop caring about GGG's slouch from grace about which you should be worried.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Sure. I accept that. But to claim you need to drop $100-$150 to make the game playable isn't true at all. You might "want" more tabs. That's a whole different story than "need" more tabs. I think you pretty much need the special tabs... at least currency, maps and frags.

I agree. Some premium tabs so you can trade and the 3 above.

Would also like to mention GGG did not add any more special tabs lately (harvest / heist / ritual / ultimatum had none). They also allowed affinity to be bound to normal tabs so it works for everyone.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

It's the day I stop caring about GGG's slouch from grace about which you should be worried.

+1, still playing but not paying.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I haven't even weighed in on the latest eyeroller: premium cursors. They're distractingly overcooked, which is both in lockstep with the game's excess-is-a-myth design philosophy and yet garish to a point of silliness.

The high contrast freebie was utterly unavoidable given the eyestrain the standard cursor can induce, so at least they recognised that much. I still feel the game has cunningly blurred QoL and essential, but that's been true for a long time.

Folks, Yolo mouse is a better mouse cursor and and it is free!

If you want to shake your head you can check out the news post from the other day about GGG's upcoming mid-league event. Posters there are gaslighting you into thinking that they're the victims if you so much as even acknowledge the reality of what happened mid April.

Guess that's a go-to tactic nowadays but I hate it all the same.

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DoubleU wrote:

+1, still playing but not paying.

Yeah, I'm barely playing, but still not paying. I feel as if it's because I have paid in the past, that it's the only reason I play as little as I do. Hard to walk away from something you have so much money invested in.