The game feels horrible to play the 3.15 nerfs + the 3.16 nerfs have just killed this game

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

Trouble with that is that a very minute number of people who can "beat the game" is way too small to financially support them. Even Chris has admitted last league that they lost 30% of their revenue because of the nerfs and that they won't be trying something like that again. Somehow I doubt most of the source of that loss is coming from those who can beat the game. It sounds more to me like they need casuals just as much as, if not moreso than, the topend.

Im not sure if I can agree here.

Most of the money is likely coming from those who cant or dont bother to beat the storyline. Those are the true casuals and they dont care about any endgame changes nor nerfs to gems/skilltree/gear or whatever as long as GGG makes sure none of those changes affect the storyline. This is also likely why Chris keeps repeating how awesome PoE2s storyline is going to be.

Those true casuals didnt show up last league because too many streamers or lets call them influencers were confused as well as spreading the "doom & gloom" message.
There were no builds prepared for them to copy and follow either, so they likely didnt bother to show up.
GGG changed their marketing approach and released all information needed 10 days or so prior to lauch, so everything would be prepared for those casuals.


Which neatly ties into my next point: The term "casual" is being thrown around here and elsewhere without any definition and it looks like it kinda means whatever the poster wants this term to mean.
Im guilty of that too.

Thinking about this I have to admit I dont believe the term "casual" suits the people we are talking about here at all. Those players are capable of reaching red maps and farm t14+ nonstop but either cant get access to anything beyond this or cant beat this content.
I think they are "mid-tier" players - sue me, I cant come up with a better term. Too knowledgeable and too invested to rightfully call themselves casuals but cant get to or beat the content they want to engage/beat.

This group of players is likely larger than the topend players but financially likely also (next to) irrelevant. As long as GGG can retain to true casuals - those who struggle to beat the storyline - GGG will do just fine financially.
Those mid-tier players calling themselves "casuals" are likely overestimating their impact on the game.
You just arent as important as you think and probaly also have close to zero leverage.


Again: PoE2 will attract tons of those true casuals and they will buy stash tabs en masse. Thats where the money is at.
The real question is if thats good enough longterm and how many of those casuals will continue to buy stuff.

"

Orbaal wrote:

Most of the money is likely coming from those who cant or dont bother to beat the storyline. Those are the true casuals and they dont care about any endgame changes nor nerfs to gems/skilltree/gear or whatever as long as GGG makes sure none of those changes affect the storyline. This is also likely why Chris keeps repeating how awesome PoE2s storyline is going to be.

Those true casuals didnt show up last league because too many streamers or lets call them influencers were confused as well as spreading the "doom & gloom" message.

I don't think this computes, why would someone who just beats the campaign even watch PoE content and follow influencers? Why would you buy stash tabs and cosmetics if you beat kitava once and call it quits until next league, or forever?
No, I expect a hefty part of their income comes from regular customers, those that are invested enough in the game to follow the content and come back each league. Look at who the major appeasement QoL changes this league were targeted at - easier uber lab, less clicking on loot, fragment stacking, atlas rework. None of those are campaign problems, those are the issues that casual mappers complained the most about.

"

Orbaal wrote:

Im not sure if I can agree here.

Most of the money is likely coming from those who cant or dont bother to beat the storyline. Those are the true casuals and they dont care about any endgame changes nor nerfs to gems/skilltree/gear or whatever as long as GGG makes sure none of those changes affect the storyline. This is also likely why Chris keeps repeating how awesome PoE2s storyline is going to be.

I really started giving GGG money when i had beaten the story and began maps. That's when i saw that i would play a lot and basically have no storage space for everything i would keep.

Since then, i stopped giving GGG money around 3.9 when i started not being ok with my builds being deleted every 3 month.

I don't really think most of the money comes from thosen who don't finish the story, but more from those who start playing endgame content.

Items like Mageblood selling for 315+ exalts is also a big problem. Im playing poe on and off for over 5 years now and i dont even know how is it even possible to accumulate 315+ exalts during a league?!?!?! WTH

50 Exalts is the max i accumulated so far and that was in Ritual League where the game felt balanced (or lets say better than now) and the chaos to exalts ratio was stable at 100 chaos per exalt.

"

raics wrote:

I don't think this computes, why would someone who just beats the campaign even watch PoE content and follow influencers? Why would you buy stash tabs and cosmetics if you beat kitava once and call it quits until next league, or forever?
No, I expect a hefty part of their income comes from regular customers, those that are invested enough in the game to follow the content and come back each league. Look at who the major appeasement QoL changes this league were targeted at - easier uber lab, less clicking on loot, fragment stacking, atlas rework. None of those are campaign problems, those are the issues that casual mappers complained the most about.

Haha no it doesnt compute as long as you are applying logic to it.
Puchases are mostly driven by emotions tho not logic. Look at commercials for instance. Are those addressing your logic/brain or your feelings?
How much money are corporations spending on those commercials? Billions?
Do you think they´d dump billions on ads that wont help them selling their useless crap?


Ive been working in the F2P business for more than 8 years by now.
A lot of the money is coming from whales and regulars, thats for sure.
But the vast majority is usually coming from people trying the game out, having a grand old time initially and deciding to drop some money for whatever reason. They may leave or keep playing, thats a whole different story.

Why would they watch YT creators? Because they cant be bothered to read 3 manifestos several pages each and the patch notes as well. They dont have the time, they wont understand it anyways unless someone explains it to them.
Thats your YT creator generating clicks and ad revenue right there.

Now if that guy - supposedly knowledgeable - cant quite comprehend what he is reading and how its going to impact the game, how do you think this going to make a clueless viewer feel?
Is it worth trying, if a knowledgeable person doesnt understand whats going on or is even claiming the sky was falling?

Its not about facts or logic. Its about feelings and appearances.
Thats what sells shitty products and gets politicians elected.
Dont ever apply logic to it.

"

Orbaal wrote:

Its not about facts or logic. Its about feelings and appearances.
Thats what sells shitty products and gets politicians elected.
Dont ever apply logic to it.

So, after losing 30% of their revenue in a league, when GGG made long-requested improvements targeted mainly at casual mappers instead of reworking act2 for the casual's casuals, like previously planned, what do you think that decision was made with? Logic or feelings?

"

raics wrote:

"

Orbaal wrote:

Its not about facts or logic. Its about feelings and appearances.
Thats what sells shitty products and gets politicians elected.
Dont ever apply logic to it.

So, after losing 30% of their revenue in a league, when GGG made long-requested improvements targeted mainly at casual mappers instead of reworking act2 for the casual's casuals, like previously planned, what do you think that decision was made with? Logic or feelings?

To be fair, considering how long people have wanted changes like this (Atlas changes to be simpler since Conquerors were implemented, stacked drops, etc) and GGG has done absolutely nothing until the big hit on revenue, it's very well possible it's a feelings-based response. :P

Like, imagine if they took a hit like that in response to trade being bad.

"

raics wrote:

"

Orbaal wrote:

Its not about facts or logic. Its about feelings and appearances.
Thats what sells shitty products and gets politicians elected.
Dont ever apply logic to it.

So, after losing 30% of their revenue in a league, when GGG made long-requested improvements targeted mainly at casual mappers instead of reworking act2 for the casual's casuals, like previously planned, what do you think that decision was made with? Logic or feelings?

Neither. Besides that the feelings trump logic part was clearly aimed at the customers not the businesses.

Regardless Im pretty sure that this was already part of the endgame revamp planned for 3.17 same as the skilltree rework.
After the 3.15 revenue drop some "feelgood" news were needed and so some of the stuff was released earlier than planned. Thats all.
GGG doesnt operate on a 3 months production cycle. Its just a 3 months release cycle. Dont confuse that.
All the stuff that isnt directly connected to league content can be produced on a separate schedule and released when ready/needed.

Thats somewhat irrelevant tho I think.
The more relevant part is that GGG released the info at least a week earlier than usual and caught everybody off guard. They succeeded in generating hype (which failed for 3.15) and made sure starter builds would be ready to go (which also failed for 3.15).

And the result was a nigh record breaking launch.
Could be coincidence ofc, Im just having a hard time believing that.
Whether that translates into sufficient sales is another story - Im aware.
Having said that: Chris didnt come out this time trying to appease the playerbase. So there is that.

Believe whatever you want. I cant provide any sort of proof, this is just how I look at it from my perspective and my experience in this field.
As I said: Im having a hard to time believing in coincidence and it shows me GGG knows full well what they are doing. And I guess its working out.

"

BigFrog49 wrote:

I can't recommend PoE; it's in decline.

Scourge is horrible. Horrible loot; one-shot mobs; backtracking. Simply awful and made worse knowing that what's bad are mechanics we've seen in the past and voiced our hatred for.

The nerfing is horrible. Especially the hidden nerfs. Let's look at Fortify. Previously, you invested a skill gem or an ascendancy node.

Now, despite Chris Wilson's assurances that melee builds using Fortify will be happy after the change - it's worse with no hope of being fixed.

For Fortify you need, a skill gem / ascendancy note AND an investment of 4 to 5 passives AND you need to do a minimum amount of hit damage (ailment/melee and spell/melee builds can f*ck off) AND Fortify now has a stacking/decaying mechanism.

So Chris is lying or confused or misinformed or the developers simply ignore what he promises to his customers.


PoE is in steep decline.

Yup and player retention proves that

Even after all the qol changes and promised stuff Scourge is already doing worse than Expedition ( as far as retention goes )

There are so many undocumented nerfs and changes

Here's an example of a crazy change that makes spectres nearly unplayable

So in past leagues you could have a rare spectre and if it died, you could easily use desecrate in your hideout to respawn it

With this league you can no longer have a spectre bank and desecrate seems to not allow you to save your spectres

I found this out the hard way after getting lithomancer spectres and stone skin. They died to some boss and I wanted to respawn em in my hideout but could not. I went in the map to respawn em and could not. I had to ask for someone to let me grab theirs from a global channel......

I'm not gonna type up every change and nerf it's way too crazy how much they attacked builds over the last 2 leagues

It used to be that Sirus could easily be done within a few exalt budget

Now? Most typical builds require 40-100 ex investment

This is mostly due to the 3.15 nerfs where almost all builds lost approx 50-80% of their original dps

POE is indeed in a decline

Stats prove that so there's no point in trying to dispute that

People are fed up with "mah vision" that GGG has

It seems also they dont listen to their own QA team because during a livestream Chris Wilson first claimed that their QA said nothing about the skill gem absolution

Then moments later admits that actually they DID point out it felt horrible and needed major buffs

So hmmmm what happened there huh?

Everything is done via text and messages and writing etc

They could not have possibly missed that... what ACTUALLY happened

Is the person or people responsible for balance is ignoring QA and ignoring community and is just doing whatever they feel like doing

Everyone is playing 1 of 6 ascendancies

Crafting still feels awful

Every build I've played with low investment feels awful

Even with high investment I had over 100 Ex invested in a CoC Necro

It barely had a few mill dps and I was even following a "streamer meta" popular build

It wasn't even impressive at all and was so damn expensive

I'm already in the process of rolling off

I have never made this many characters before and respec and tried so many different builds in a single league ever before

I am not having fun

I am trying to find an enjoyable build and I am struggling to find anything even remotely decent

If it has dps its squishy af

If it isn't squishy af its got zdps

Im sure there are some meta builds that are okay but I don't feel like playing the most meta crap

The game is starting to feel like diablo to me

Cookie Cutter builds that feel good to play

Everything else - poop

If that is the POE you like? Then great for you

For me no I don't want to only have a few builds to pick from and everything else feel like garbage

So many past builds that I used to play are actually dead now and don't even work

Like im not going to invest 100+ex just to have a mediocre build just because I wanna play X skill

The game has never felt like this prior to 3.13

Some people might argue that there is alot of diversity but no... there really isn't

80% of the POE.Ninja ladder is made up of a handful of builds

Approx 10 builds

Oh well I can complain and rant, but it falls on deaf ears

Everyone has been complaining about trade for years

They dont care

Everyone been asking for qol

They didn't care up till how bad 3.15 did

I hope with the horrid performance and retention of 3.16 they get a kick in the ass and realize they are making a huge mistake with the direction they are taking the game

Or they won't care again and this game will slowly become a hollow shell of its original self

"

Orbaal wrote:

Believe whatever you want. I cant provide any sort of proof, this is just how I look at it from my perspective and my experience in this field.
As I said: Im having a hard to time believing in coincidence and it shows me GGG knows full well what they are doing. And I guess its working out.

Sure, neither of us exactly has anything solid to back it up, so it's only natural that I'll believe my own theory.