Path of Exile has changed it's audience...

If you take a look at the Grinding Gear Games website, they tell you they know 'how to make an addicting game'.

I was quite surprised that they are that blunt about it.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

There were few things I said more to newcomers during the beta than 'your first character will almost certainly be a failure'. And I said it not to discourage them but because learning by failing was such a strong point of pride in the PoE that was. There was something almost sacred in the way the game reminded us no one gets it right the first time, whatever 'it' might be. Learning is an iterative process, an accumulation of dead ends either faced or avoided, until the path through to one's objective is all that remains.

And of course I also encouraged people to research, to keep that wiki open, to read guides. Because imitation and, more importantly, *understanding* what you're imitating, is still one of the best ways to learn. But there is a disclaimer here: imitation either precedes originality or it loses purpose as anything but a routine.

I now believe GGG fluked whatever iterative learning they infused into PoE, because they've allowed it to become the opposite of that. Failure doesn't lead to improvement, because you are left with only vague indications of how you failed. The question is multi-pronged (was my gear insufficient? Did I choose the wrong pathing? Did I neglect a defensive stat? Was that monster way stronger than the rest here?) but the answer is almost always the same: you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has. So trade for that gear maybe, get a bunch of Regret Orbs, or just start over. That last is, of course, least desirable because getting back to that point of failure is quite mindless and tiresome.

Imitation only teaches when you understand it enough to dismantle the process and reconstruct it in your own way. PoE once allowed this, by being much more sanely paced and uncluttered even at the upper end; it no longer does, as the game is insanely paced and cluttered well before the Atlas now.

As for the gambling/crafting aspect, I've said enough times elsewhere: PoE defiles and desecrates the notion of 'crafting' in games. Other than deterministic item modification such as bench crafting, vendor recipes and divination cards (and even those have variable ranges to 'win' or 'lose'), it is no more crafting than shovelling money into a slot machine is 'earning'. GGG pulled off a major trick when they convinced people that randomising the variables of their gear over and again in the hopes of a favourable outcome is 'crafting'. And those they couldn't convince certainly didn't stick around, because if a dev is willing to be that devious in one aspect, how else might they play fast and loose with otherwise accepted conventions?

Right now, the fact that PoE is not 'pay to win' is no longer a completely positive observation or selling point; it's more like 'well, at least it's not pay to win' with the unspoken: because that's about all it has going for it. And there are, and always will be, those who are willing to slide a little further into 'pay to win' territory if it means playing a game that actually feels like one rather than a test of one's devotion to the game's systems.

After my little stint with PoE2022, I really am left wondering: what does it mean to play PoE? If it's so much more than just loading the game and killing shit, then how much of what we call 'playing' is...anything but playing?


'No one gets it right the first time' I said earlier...how could we have forgotten that PoE was, is and will be GGG's first time? Not even 'Path of Exile 2' will be a truly new thing. GGG are so committed to this first time that each update of it shows us they have forgotten how important it is to start over now and then. Because in very few cases does simply adding more without consideration of the existing creation fix anything. Add too many colours of paint and you get the anti-colour, black; add too many spices and you get a strong but pointless 'spiciness'; add too many voices to a chorus and you get noise.

GGG try to subtract now and then by removing a past league gimmick but they're so fucking precious about it all that they remind me of the worst of self-published authors who couldn't 'kill their darlings' and just put out these monstrous, aimless accumulations of 'things happening' with no sense of cohesion. You could legitimately remove 30-40% of PoE's content and no one who's never played it before would think 'this game needs more stuff for me to do'. Instead they remove 1% here, 2% there, and then add 5-10% and somehow expect that not to be even more bloated than ever before.

The only people really happy with it are those who, after so much exposure to this incessant compression of meaning into mush, lost their ability to perceive the colours, to taste the individual spices, or to even notice that all they're hearing is noise long ago. The numb addicts who kneel helplessly at the base of PoE's towering, teetering mass of content, awed at what they think is brilliance because it blinds them but to anyone else is just a painful glare, a grotesque misuse of illumination that rather than light the way, obfuscates any sort of clarity or vision.

wow that's depressing

Bloat is a problem and they've done a lot to address this by giving you the freedom to choose what content you prefer.

But of course the long standing missing elements (PvP / P2P) has been a problem. An entire large branch of gaming in the ARPG has been missing for years and so the audience never matured for it.

I felt like the game just went the wrong way years ago. Adding things like Harvest and Heist were "hey we're adding some new features because you asked for it" when it missed the point at the baseline. We wanted things we had in D2 that were missing in PoE. It was really that simple.

Now other ARPGs have emerged like Soulsborne games which gave us the ARPG elements we wanted and the community developed around that. Which is why games like Dark Souls and other games like Pub G / GTA and the sort have absorbed a huge number of players past and present.

So it is a design problem. A myopic view of the community which would be possible that led to a smaller and smaller audience.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Failure doesn't lead to improvement, because you are left with only vague indications of how you failed. The question is multi-pronged (was my gear insufficient? Did I choose the wrong pathing? Did I neglect a defensive stat? Was that monster way stronger than the rest here?) but the answer is almost always the same: you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has. So trade for that gear maybe, get a bunch of Regret Orbs, or just start over. That last is, of course, least desirable because getting back to that point of failure is quite mindless and tiresome.

"you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has" summarizes the state of video games atm really well. Many people seem completely unempathetic and mirthless towards playing a game differently, and are very fast to call it "shit", "wrong", or "dumb". If a new player shares excitement about something they often feel its their job to inform that player how they shouldn't be excited about it, and how they should have gotten something better.

Don't you dare do something "unusual" and ask about the details. Someone in chat gave me crap because I leveling a gladiator but I wasn't using Opened (Unopened? idk) Palm, some skill that's used to trivialize leveling. I'm sure I'd learn tons if I did that. /s They assumed that's the only way you can possibly play. They said the campaign should be taking me 3 hours. Oh and also the campaign is "just a tutorial". I'm sure devs love the sound of that.

Like what kind of learning are we talking about when the player base is like this? Dismiss, disregard the learner's experience. Try ask about something that gets to the bottom of things and you'll get a dismissive answer that tells you to go do some meta thing instead of being curious. I was horrified to discover the playerbase doesn't even know the structure of the loot filters it uses...

Copy copy copy, all that matters is big numbers, fast clear, efficiency, "success" defined relatively to an infinitely moving goalpost, not how you got there, not whether or not you used your own thinking cap to arrive there, not whether you understand the essence of it.

That's the fate of coop multiplayer gaming today, and that's how people like it, because when you drop a big playerbase on RNG that's how the numbers do be. Dare they complain of the inevitable consequences of their own mirthlessness and inability to deal with what is just an addiction.

"

Bosscannon wrote:

"

AbilityPoints wrote:

I wish PoE had been built by GGG around SSF rather than trade, it would solve many problems I find with the game.

Yes.

Pretty much every player I introduce to the game wants to play self found, but with the options of grouping. When I tell them they should be buying items from a website and following a build guide, they lose interest and leave.

Watch any new streamer try the game, chat screeches at them that they have to follow a build guide, none of them want to.

POE needs to embrace a more sandbox nature, far more optional juicing options to offer risk vs reward, but arent mandatory.

How about some more orbs that add special mods to maps? Archnemesis orbs etc. These love/hate mechanics like archnemesis, trading, reflect, super tanky rares etc, should be more optional.

so much waffle and navel gazing in this thread.


sometimes people just enjoy playing a game because they find it fun, its not that deep. people need to look in the mirror and ask if theyre projecting their own insecurities onto how they perceive everyone else is thinking and playing.


its like that notion some uncool kids get into their head that all the popular kids are obviously egotistical arseholes, the fat kids think all the skinny kids are bad people who judge them... theyre really not, theyre just living their lives, and actually the people who need to stop being so judgemental of others and look in the mirror are the ones who think theyre the victim of other peoples unjustified derision. the truth is theyre the ones judging others and oppressing themselves, and their world view that they think is third person analytical is actually autobiographical.

"

dookleeto wrote:

Pretty much every player I introduce to the game wants to play self found, but with the options of grouping. When I tell them they should be buying items from a website and following a build guide, they lose interest and leave.

Watch any new streamer try the game, chat screeches at them that they have to follow a build guide, none of them want to.

so why are you telling them they should be doing these things?

thats you putting that in the situation, arnt you the problem there?

So if we're going to have an honest conversation about this, I am going to admit that I am someone who Chris Wilson ran off from path of exile because I knew I was likely not their target audience.

Path of exile had become very zoom zoom in the time. I played in, and exalts were at some of the cheapest you could find.

For someone like me who truly is casual without qualifiers, I completely enjoyed cheap exalts because it allowed me to finally explore builds in the game and previous tears of content that I otherwise didn't have access to because I have a life.


I was supportive of the changes to damage scaling and an attempt to slow the game down because I understood that power creep was a real thing, but Chris and company effectively burned the game completely to the ground for everyone except for the no life hardcore players.

And then Chris publicly admitted that this is all he really cares about and he doesn't want to make a game that's accessible for everyone.

Half of exile is a hardcore game for hardcore gamers. It's meant to be niche. This is how Chris wants it and he's confessed he even wishes he could make it tougher and more impossible for people to play other than those who have no life and can just dedicate their soul to this thing.

That's what ultimately drove me away. If he doesn't want my money and doesn't want me playing the game then so be it.

Having said that, during the times where I was enjoying it I spent a pretty penny on MTX all over time because I was really enjoying the content.

The other game I was playing hit a dry spell and I don't win I decided just to check things out and even though I came into it late in this league I'll admit I found a bill that has me having fun again even though exalts are back to being stupidly ridiculous now in terms of price - I'm currently one map away from finally completing my first Atlas, and I'm learning the strengths and limitations of my character, who can handle all the normal bosses easily but gets pancakes by The Uber bosses.

I think it's because I lucked into finding a build that was affordable, that I ended up sticking around.

But I will tell you I have not and will not spend another dime on MTX for the game.

Chris wants the hardcore to be his fans and they cater to the hardcore because that's where all the whales are who overpay. So if Chris wants to make a game where he doesn't value the opinions of people who are similar to me, and may drop $1,000 a year into the game instead of $1,000 a league or more like the whales do, then I certainly don't have to give him my money and he can be happy with his niche market, just the way he likes it.

Having said all that - I'll give credit where credit is due: the new Atlas, which allows me to play the content I want, is something I absolutely love.

So I'll tip my cap to the team for that one.

"

Eskeev wrote:

Spoiler

"

鬼殺し wrote:

There were few things I said more to newcomers during the beta than 'your first character will almost certainly be a failure'. And I said it not to discourage them but because learning by failing was such a strong point of pride in the PoE that was. There was something almost sacred in the way the game reminded us no one gets it right the first time, whatever 'it' might be. Learning is an iterative process, an accumulation of dead ends either faced or avoided, until the path through to one's objective is all that remains.

And of course I also encouraged people to research, to keep that wiki open, to read guides. Because imitation and, more importantly, *understanding* what you're imitating, is still one of the best ways to learn. But there is a disclaimer here: imitation either precedes originality or it loses purpose as anything but a routine.

I now believe GGG fluked whatever iterative learning they infused into PoE, because they've allowed it to become the opposite of that. Failure doesn't lead to improvement, because you are left with only vague indications of how you failed. The question is multi-pronged (was my gear insufficient? Did I choose the wrong pathing? Did I neglect a defensive stat? Was that monster way stronger than the rest here?) but the answer is almost always the same: you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has. So trade for that gear maybe, get a bunch of Regret Orbs, or just start over. That last is, of course, least desirable because getting back to that point of failure is quite mindless and tiresome.

Imitation only teaches when you understand it enough to dismantle the process and reconstruct it in your own way. PoE once allowed this, by being much more sanely paced and uncluttered even at the upper end; it no longer does, as the game is insanely paced and cluttered well before the Atlas now.

As for the gambling/crafting aspect, I've said enough times elsewhere: PoE defiles and desecrates the notion of 'crafting' in games. Other than deterministic item modification such as bench crafting, vendor recipes and divination cards (and even those have variable ranges to 'win' or 'lose'), it is no more crafting than shovelling money into a slot machine is 'earning'. GGG pulled off a major trick when they convinced people that randomising the variables of their gear over and again in the hopes of a favourable outcome is 'crafting'. And those they couldn't convince certainly didn't stick around, because if a dev is willing to be that devious in one aspect, how else might they play fast and loose with otherwise accepted conventions?

Right now, the fact that PoE is not 'pay to win' is no longer a completely positive observation or selling point; it's more like 'well, at least it's not pay to win' with the unspoken: because that's about all it has going for it. And there are, and always will be, those who are willing to slide a little further into 'pay to win' territory if it means playing a game that actually feels like one rather than a test of one's devotion to the game's systems.

After my little stint with PoE2022, I really am left wondering: what does it mean to play PoE? If it's so much more than just loading the game and killing shit, then how much of what we call 'playing' is...anything but playing?


'No one gets it right the first time' I said earlier...how could we have forgotten that PoE was, is and will be GGG's first time? Not even 'Path of Exile 2' will be a truly new thing. GGG are so committed to this first time that each update of it shows us they have forgotten how important it is to start over now and then. Because in very few cases does simply adding more without consideration of the existing creation fix anything. Add too many colours of paint and you get the anti-colour, black; add too many spices and you get a strong but pointless 'spiciness'; add too many voices to a chorus and you get noise.

GGG try to subtract now and then by removing a past league gimmick but they're so fucking precious about it all that they remind me of the worst of self-published authors who couldn't 'kill their darlings' and just put out these monstrous, aimless accumulations of 'things happening' with no sense of cohesion. You could legitimately remove 30-40% of PoE's content and no one who's never played it before would think 'this game needs more stuff for me to do'. Instead they remove 1% here, 2% there, and then add 5-10% and somehow expect that not to be even more bloated than ever before.

The only people really happy with it are those who, after so much exposure to this incessant compression of meaning into mush, lost their ability to perceive the colours, to taste the individual spices, or to even notice that all they're hearing is noise long ago. The numb addicts who kneel helplessly at the base of PoE's towering, teetering mass of content, awed at what they think is brilliance because it blinds them but to anyone else is just a painful glare, a grotesque misuse of illumination that rather than light the way, obfuscates any sort of clarity or vision.

wow that's depressing

I think it's a little more nuanced than just depressing but I'll agree, it wasn't much fun to write.

"

Revenchule wrote:

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Spoiler

Failure doesn't lead to improvement, because you are left with only vague indications of how you failed. The question is multi-pronged (was my gear insufficient? Did I choose the wrong pathing? Did I neglect a defensive stat? Was that monster way stronger than the rest here?) but the answer is almost always the same: you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has. So trade for that gear maybe, get a bunch of Regret Orbs, or just start over. That last is, of course, least desirable because getting back to that point of failure is quite mindless and tiresome.

Spoiler

"you didn't do it the way someone else successfully has" summarizes the state of video games atm really well. .

I feel that's a little too reductive and eager to position what GGG have done as 'standard' for the industry. Plenty of new games aren't that demanding in terms of implicit 'follow the leader', especially those that explicit encourage creative approaches to common problems: for example, the so-called 'survival' genre. And even other ARPGs that have come out have been more accommodating when it comes to doing things one's own way, because that's sort of what ARPGs have always been about, at least for as long as they gave you the options to do so. Certainly there are videos and guides for all those games, but in few games is the impetus to just blindly mimic them without learning *why* it all works as strong as with PoE. Probably the one game that has made me feel similarly would be FFXIV and its fearsome addiction to raids and boss encounters that absolutely do teach by punishment -- I'm not playing that game to feel like an accomplished endgamer, but to experience a story that is slowly not sucking total balls, so I am totally happy to mimic a guide there. Especially since you really do pick a job and get good at what little it does if you don't want to be a burden on others.

But that's the exception for me. In contrast, I devour For Honor guides (it's a melee weapon fighting game so guides are purely pvp in nature) and see combos and punishes and whatnot and think, okay, cool, definitely going to try to pop some of them into my own way of playing. Or I might see something that I know is beyond me, admire it and move on. I mostly play PvAI because I don't want to deal with others' shit and I know I'm not that good, so I play the way I enjoy.

Which brings us back to PoE. An almost purely PvAI/PvE experience that aggressively tells you how to enjoy it and makes very clear when you're not doing that. How can that NOT be seen as a game design failure if even PvP games are more flexible than that in terms of how to enjoy them? Worse, it has a proxy PvP element in the trading system, which in turn the devs don't even oversee in any meaningful way. Great for bloodthirsty opportunists desperate to be good at *something*, terrible for people who just want to play the fucking game when they're not doing what they're actually good at (which almost invariably should matter more than a fucking game).

Honestly, you don't have to look too far from here to see that PoE is not representative of the 'state of modern gaming'. State of modern game culture? Maybe. It can be hard to divorce the two with PoE when its devs seem that far up their streamers' revenue channels (saying 'our community' when referring exclusively to a select echelon of dedicated PoE streamers -- could you fucking *not*?), but thankfully 'state of modern gaming culture' and 'state of modern gaming' are overall very different things. It's mostly up to the gamer to decide which they want to be a part of, and I'll admit it can be awkward when you slip from merely 'playing' a game to being exposed to its culture (happens a lot when you just want a quick guide or hint and instead find yourself fuck-deep on a forum reading drama that you've seen a million times before but SERIOUSLY WHICH CLASSES CAN USE TWO-HANDED SWORDS JUST FUCKING TELL ME)...buuuut then you exercise a tiny bit of willpower, get what you need and get back to the game.

I feel like such a hypocrite when this happens to me. I'm like 'jesus, you people need to just go play the game or something' when of course here I am, very likely writing the sort of thing that pisses me off when it comes to researching/looking up any other game. But this one is squarely GGG's fault: they made me use this forum to get a closed beta key to try their game (you had to sign up for an account to get into the beta key lottery, and they encouraged people to post to take part in giveaways, which I did and which I promptly won), and barring a few involuntary holidays and a few very voluntary absences, I never left. Like or not, this is as close to a 'home' as I have on the internet now, and so PoE's 'gaming culture' is, even for me, that much more pervasive and enduring than maybe the game itself.

I often wonder what it'd be like if I'd found PoE a year later, when it was truly free to play and I would have never needed to post here. I don't think I'd have bought anything but an eternal pack, just to design a unique because holy shit was that fun. I might have engaged in the Off Topic but probably not, and definitely not in the 'on topic' stuff: by then, there was little room in the discussion for casuals like me, whereas when I DID find PoE, the conversation was much less about how to 'beat' the game and -- to bring this full circle -- much more about how we were going to enjoy it. Going to, because of course when you've only two acts and 5 classes and it's all clearly a major WIP, it's all about looking ahead, dreaming and riding a wave of mutilation jubilation.

I tried to do that with other games, to become an early access hopper, but there's no replicating how incredible those early days of PoE really were. I pity anyone here who missed them, because they'll never know how close we came to get getting dyes, a proper forum-based trading system, shorter-term events, and other mod-cons we otherwise consider 'standard' for online multiplayer games.

Sorry what was the question again? I think it's time for my pills and a lie-down. This has been wonderful. Say hello to the family for me, sonny. You know, I was something of a...something myself...way back...yesterday? Zzzzzzzzzz

I still think GGG could set off a Golden Age by making a set of products aimed at the bereft friends and family of addicted no-lifers.

High-quality materials, expert production values, dedicated service and support. Things that people actually need. Furniture, appliances, health and hygiene.

For instance, Player A has a young wife and baby he is ignoring while grinding Crimson Temples for Apothecary cards. The baby is reaching the age where she is teething and eating finger foods off a plate for the first time. She needs a nice child chair and table. The dog hasn't been walked in ages and is getting cabin fever. He hasn't shaved or showered in a week. There's a wood stove but it's empty. The garbage is overflowing and the food scraps in the bin are attracting ants.

What better way to make a slam-dunk sale in a house divided by PoE, than a Li'l Kitava folding table, Hungry Hungry Eater sippy cup and plates, and Li'l Uber Sirus highchair made of recovered ironwood?

Li'l Kitava folding table. Kidney-shaped tabletop of enamelled, galvanized steel has no sharp corners and allows Baby to sit comfortably at table with all items at reach. Just like you see Li'l Kitava sitting in Crucible, the table comes up to his chest for safety and stability. Raised lip table margin prevents spills from random arm sweeps.

Lil Uber Sirus highchair is resistant to tipping and seats Baby at eye level with adults and older children, promoting learning good table manners and social inclusion. Chair is made out of ironwood recovered from natural windfallen Rata Trees on New Zealand's north Island. 2 shelves and an adjustable footrest can be snapped into place. So comfortable, baby won't want to come down.

Hungry Hungry Eater child utensils and dishes are made of chrome-plated steel and are autoclavable. Patented Tendril Whip fork and spoon handles are designed to encourage correct grip. Chyme Puddle dish design is oval, allowing picky eaters to section off foods and get used to the flavours and textures on their own terms. Sippy Cup has a silicone lid that's dishwasher safe and shaped for good dental and swallowing hygiene.

Double Boss Bunk Bed Set. This DIY steel-framed bunk bed set has two Twin bed mattresses separated by an ANSI Regulations 1.2 meter height with in-frame ladder. Choose from: Canyon Duo (brown and green), Shavronne & Brutus (red and blue), Good Barthol & Bad Barthol (white and black), Maligaro & Fidelitas (purple and gold).

Jack, the Axe Woodshed. This aluminum shed assembles in minutes. Rolling door or galvanized steel gate that opens and closes with a soundtrack of someone hiding inside breathing heavily and arguing with himself. (Battery not included.) never again forget to close the shed after getting some firewood - or else!

Precursors Shower Curtain Ring Set. Choose from 9 themes with these brightly-coloured anodized aluminum rings to hold your Shower Curtain in place (see below). Each pack of 9 rings contains a random selection of Uzaza, Ahkeli, or Putembo forms and Mountain, Valley, or Meadow colours. All sets snap together with one click and storage is easy - just make a Precursor's Emblem and push it to the end. That's "Aul" there is to it!

Tsoagoth Shower Curtain or Shower Click-Door Set. Scrub off yer barnacles with this leak-proof but machine-washable woven nylon Lord of the Deep Ones curtain. Nessa wall-mount soap dish not included.

Farrul poopy box and litter scoop - TBA

Caer Blaidd heated covered dog run. Rated to -20 C, ventilated, all bedding removable and machine-washable. A veritable castle for your pupper, the elevated floor and louvered eaves help keep doggos comfortable in heat, frost, and storm. OptiCam cable and mounting bracket to see who's home. 50m fence with 12 posts extends around other installations.

Ryslatha Compost Bin turns food scraps into rich soil. Packet of earthworms and nightcrawlers mixes easily into starter culture. Aerator and sifter are stainless steel.