The Mirror of Kalandra and user retention

The Mirror of Kalandra, in my opinion is both the best and worst thing about Path of Exile. It's both a metaphor and a solution. As a metaphor, it reflects what's inside of you. As a solution, well... it's the cheapest way to deal with item duping while you are an indie developer.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed mankind was inherently good and compassionate. While Thomas Hobbes believed mankind was inherently selfish, driven by their own desires and prone to violence and conflict. I think that, when it comes to the market, Hobbes wins. Hands down. It's not even a fair-fight.



When you see this picture, you should immediately ask yourself. Which one are you? Are you the knight or the moder-day soldier?

If you are a knight, you should see this picture with contempt. Because, in fact, it is quite contemptible. You are fighting a war (economic war) and you have no idea how powerful that strange stick-looking-thing is. Even if you took one of those sticks and tried to fire it, you have no idea how much more firepower is backing up that soldier up.

If you are a modern-day soldier using all sorts of tools, then none of this is news. Every league, you come in and you trivialize the game, and you make sure knights die.



The battle is usually over by the first week. The next two or three weeks is just cleanup.

Now, here comes the interesting part. During the first 4 weeks, most of the knights are killed. Now, this should mean that there will be less knights requiring things from the marketplace. After all, we are talking about the law of supply and demand not the Suggestion of Supply and Demand, right?

Instead, what do we see?



We see that the prices continue to rise. Always rising exile. The supply is certainly not going down on the contrary it's ever-increasing as people offer more "Free XP leech" parties (you get XP, they farm mirrors). Isn't that something? Less fighters, less demand, more supply, and an never-ending price hike.

Now, I do agree with GGG in one thing (when it comes to this subject). We should have aspirational content. If you are playing for +10 years, ethically, and you eventually find a mirror of Kalandra the splendor of that moment I cannot even imagine.

GGG... Over the years, you've been able to detect and banned people that dupe (without the mirror), hasn't the mirror served its secondary purpose yet?

I mean... I could be wrong. Maybe the Mirror of Kalandra true nature is simply to allow you to dupe an item. If that's the case, then the mirror it self should be destroyed. It's no longer an aspirational item. It's just a tool to provide those with the means a way to duplicate an item.

Now, why does all of this happen?

I think, in part, it's because our social structure is gone. Our chat and our guilds have not received any love from the devs since their inception. This meant that most people stopped interacting with the chat and couldn't care less for a glorified shared stash. Why? Well, because they get the structure and hierarchy, they need straight from a third party (discord usually). This also means, you can't police it. This also means it's a lot harder to spot an illegal trade.

In words of a bot-owner that made an AMA on reddit: "The core of the game is located at a point of elite players and botters. It's set higher than in regular MMOs. Regular players won't acquire wealth, they will RMT".

So... again... why are you still asking "HOW CAN WE IMPROVE PLAYER RETENTION?" when the answer is right in front of you.

Even worst, is that these soldiers are so organized any discussion about the subject is quickly shut down with the same tactics: rage-bait or ad hominem. It's NUTS!

Everyone trying to play longer and requesting for changes have to walk around eggshells and watch streamers that pretend nothing is happening even when you report things straight to them or GGG.

Hobbes is winning.

Mirror-tier originals should be crafted as a group effort. That's FREE advertisement. It took X guild Y amount of time to craft the perfect Z. Instead, what do we get? BOT owners, RMT'ers, and some minor donations from random people that probably don't know better. That's how mirro-tier items are funded.

Other interesting topics:

A game called werewolf https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M8j1xWbyfjI

George Carlin discussing what an informal conspiracy is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs

War pigs cover by T-pain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhjIs2Htzdc

War pigs by Black Sabbathhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpc-xJwXmyw

So... for ONCE, can we actually discuss the topic? or are we going to play the game of werewolf and try our best to get the post removed? Streamers... you need more views... HINT! HINT! this is what's killing your viewers.

It's never going to be changed just saying.

"

Coconutdoggy wrote:

It's never going to be changed just saying.

get rid of all the pretty graphics and unnecessary high-brow name dropping and metaphor and this post offers.....nothing.

Not once is any correlation between "user retention" and mirrors actually presented in a meaningful way, nor are any suggestions offered. OP wants OTHER people to discuss the very thing he has no idea how to discuss.

Always love seeing graphs that oversimplify the ENTIRE economy to a basic 1-to-1 relationship that doesn't even exist. Supply of and demand for the mirror is a false metric to extrapolate any player data from. It is natural that the supply of mirrors increase. It is also true that the supply of mirror-able items increases. It is ALSO true that the USAGE of mirrors to actually dupe items increases. It is ALSO ALSO true that more players over time want and have the ability to purchase mirrors and mirror-tier items over time. It is ALSO ALSO ALSO true that active players offering mirror items and mirrors decrease as the league continues.

1) Offerings increase, then decrease
2) Buyers increase
3) Sellers decrease
4) Supply and Demand for the "mirror" is being affected by like 7 different directions all at once.

Your whole soldier / knight metaphor falls apart in the first sentence because you are comparing two players that.....have no interaction with each other. The knight isn't walking the same battlefield as the soldier, he may as well be in his own isolated parallel world with other knights.

And then you pivot to social structure for ...some reason only known to you...


Just....smh, you work so hard to put together something that literally says NOTHING. incredible.

if it were me....i'd come up with an actual position, and actual facts rather than hyperbole and unnecessary metaphor and philosophy, and see if you can present it in two sentences. If you can't....you have no position.

nice post op, i agree with a lot of it.

I've played well over 30,000 hours of this game and never found a mirror or anything of comparable value.

Plenty in stock like you said tho :)

"

SilentSymphony wrote:

nice post op, i agree with a lot of it.

I've played well over 30,000 hours of this game and never found a mirror or anything of comparable value.

Plenty in stock like you said tho :)

Wow dude you must be a time traveler or something! To go from 11000 hours a few months ago to over 30000 hours now (after having "uninstalled" the game)!

That translates to playing "nonstop" for over 25% of the entire lifetime of PoE...MAGIC!

You were the one who posted your "uninstalled" pic in every thread for weeks, with your total playtime right there. People don't forget.

Was this thread generated by AI?

Edit for clarification:
This post has literally every single one of the indicators you see when an 8th grader uses ChatGPT to generate their book report. It's got a variety ofconcepts that don't really connect to each other summarized nebulously, vague quotes with no applicability or explanation, no clearly stated central points, theses, or arguments, visual aides that serve zero purpose other than to add color and distract from the lack of through line... it's got EVERYTHING.

"

ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

Was this thread generated by AI?

Edit for clarification:
This post has literally every single one of the indicators you see when an 8th grader uses ChatGPT to generate their book report. It's got a variety ofconcepts that don't really connect to each other summarized nebulously, vague quotes with no applicability or explanation, no clearly stated central points, theses, or arguments, visual aides that serve zero purpose other than to add color and distract from the lack of through line... it's got EVERYTHING.

I don't think its AI....it actually reminds me of that Family Guy scene where Brian Griffin takes ritalin and creates a "game" that is just total bloat and nonsense, that he THOUGHT was creative and genius.

I think the OP was actually....on something....when they chose to write this.

Not related to user retention, but frankly mirror is another bizarre GGG-only feature. Do you know many other arpg where item duping is not only allowed, but encouraged?

Add to it how mirrors are hard gated behind MF stacking, this splits community even worse. Elite of the elite who can afford MF culler party runs eventually get self-sustaining fortune with mirror shops (which attract RMT too), while peon players never see a mirror in their life and never will unless they break the game first with said MF and party abuses.

Said it before and will say until I am banned: MF on items is way too impactful, it needs to be nerfed with diminishing returns, as well as close party culler abuse hole where loot is calculated from whoever did the killing blow. Solution may be personal loot for every party member, maybe (if sticking with shared loot) calculate from player who did the most % damage to mob.

i dont play in parties with mf cullers etc, ive owned many mirrors, mirrored many items. some of the richest legit players in the game are not mfing, theyre barely even playing the game. they can make multiple mirrors in the first few days of a league without even running a single map.

last time i bought actual mirrors i bought i think 3 of them in the space of about 6 weeks by trading for items and fossils with chaos, crafting them in bulk, selling them and then reinvesting a small amount of that profit in more items and fossils. i was playing the game from hideout to hideout, i didnt really do anything in an actual zone that made any wealth.

this was in standard, im a middle class player. the real chad players could make 3 mirrors like that by day 3 of a league start without even finishing the campaign.






i fundamentally disagree or fail to see any point/relevance in almost everything the op is saying.