The Mirror of Kalandra and user retention

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

I earned these quite well mind you OP.

Congratulations nice items, just remember you are the exception not the rule. Most players don't even come close to this (https://steamcommunity.com/stats/PathofExile/achievements). And I know, I know, data is not complete nor should be trusted entirely, but that's all we have.

I know smart people like the ones on this post are certainly not suggesting that if the data (poedb, poeantiquary, steam stats) is incomplete or cannot entirely be trusted all we can and should do is stay silent and never investigate. Certainly, that's not what I'm reading, right? That goes without saying, right?

with every post, there is more and more wrong information and a full-on admittance that OP has no idea what he's doing, analyzing, or talking about.

Hilarious.

The ONLY thing I have found so far that relates what is being said to player retention is "Players are being priced out of playing". This is just...false. As players (knights) spend more time in the game, they gain MORE wealth, and can progress further. You look at mirrors and divines, but ignore the 99.9% of items that REMAIN at 1c or even FALL to 1c shortly after the league begins, enabling the less experienced "marketeers" to get everything they need. In fact, the middle tier of items only really ever gets CHEAPER as the league goes on, and that is where MOST (probably 99%) of the player base does their trades.

People aren't clamoring for mirror-tier items, people aren't clamoring for mirrors, most people are certainly not clamoring for gear worth 100s of divines. These are the players already experienced enough to know they CAN get this point, no matter where it is league after league.

The whole "argument", if you can even call it that at this point with the misinterpreted graphs and incorrect, unrelated information, is predicated on a false assumption that everyone's goal is to get a mirror or mirror an item. And everything else achievable is worthless.

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

Did he have any in the first place?

I'll be the first to support efforts to hold RMTers accountable and so to an extent I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but indeed too many things read as drivel, misrepresentation of data or made up. Not very compelling, I'll say

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BlackMarshes212 wrote:

Again... This is not a "GOTCHA" moment, I've been quite clear from the get-go that's the discussion we need to have at least once. That's also why I think this post never belonged in the "feedback" section. It belongs in the general section because it addresses GGG's and streamers main issue: player retention.

No one would have mistaken it for a gotcha moment, don't worry. The discussion is important, and so I find it exhausting to explain why you shouldn't play make-believe with evidence. Doing that only dilutes the actual conversation and helps the RMTers

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Not a fan of the mirror itself, but fundamentally disagree with everything else you wrote in the same way as Snorkle. I too have gotten plenty of mirrors and mirror-tier items through regular play and trade and experience. I believe I may have already hashed this out with you in particular so I won't go any further than one post here:

I amass everything and anything I could ever want, mf or no mf. I enjoy occasionally slapping on the mf and doing the "flavor of the month" farming strategy, but it is definitely less than 10% of my overall time in PoE. The amount of time and energy that is sucked out of MY enjoyment by OTHER PEOPLE running mf is exactly ZERO. If it bothers you so so so much and interferes with your game enjoyment....I'm sorry but you are doing something wrong.

Let people do whatever the hell they want, whatever the hell they find fun. I will continue to do what I have done for 12 years with absolutely no real interference from any other player. Each new league is a brand new start, and as such you play WITHIN the new market and new environment you are provided. In a league like this one, where mf and the mechanic have created massive inflation....well that just means you sell things at a higher price and maybe it takes a bit longer to collect what you need. Other leagues it might be totally different. That is the nature of playing the game and I could care less that things change like that. I've never once felt that the game has been "broken" because of mf.

If this was SSF (which is personal no-go in poe because no party), I'd agree, and would prefer not to care about what other players do, yes. However in trade, drop rates are balanced around trade and I have to interact with trade to get rarer items that I need (this is the whole point of poe, to try and assemble something new, yes?). And prices on those items are formed from other people's excesses, based on amounts of currency they have, not on what I and other peons have.

So, elite players basically push me to play in the same tempo as they do, if I wish to trade with them. Which just feels tiresome and irrelevant by now (GGG nukes in Standard don't help too). Ended up stopping playing and occasionally ranting on these forums. Maybe new incentive appears when they add some actual new content in Standard, which means never :)

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Echothesis wrote:

So, elite players basically push me to play in the same tempo as they do, if I wish to trade with them. Which just feels tiresome and irrelevant by now (GGG nukes in Standard don't help too). Ended up stopping playing and occasionally ranting on these forums. Maybe new incentive appears when they add some actual new content in Standard, which means never :)

I believe the opposite to be true....because people play at that super high level and amass incredible amounts of wealth, the items that the "average" player wishes to purchase or even SEE on the market exist and are cheap.

If we didn't have the upper tier, there would be NO middle tier and it would be a far far rougher environment. This was true back in the days of exalt / eternal crafting. Near-perfect items were almost as expensive as perfect items. Nowadays, near-perfect can be 1/100th the cost of a perfect item because there are SO MANY failed perfect attempts that flood the market BECAUSE the upper crust has so much currency to craft with. A great example of this is the current "value" of magebloods in this league: because there are MORE upper tier mf-ers farming these, they are dirt cheap for everyone else. It is the OPPOSITE of what you seem to think is happening.

If you are focused on the MOST powerful and MOST expensive items in the game, sure...MAYBE this poses a problem to you (I still don't believe it does...). But if you drop your expectations by probably less than 10%, the pace at which you can improve is astronomically FASTER and CHEAPER than it would be in an alternate market with less currency and less high end mirror crafters around.

Also for the record, I have never once played SSF and never will. So all of my experience with the game is coming from trade league. And I've had no issues whatsoever, at any time. I've gotten mirror items on my own, with no mf. I've gotten all the items I could ever want, on my own or via trade. No one else's mf-ing or playstyle has ever had the slightest impact on MY ability to progress my characters. It is only your own heavy mental focus on what mf and rmt COULD be doing to your experience that actually allows it to HAVE an effect in the first place.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

I believe the opposite to be true....because people play at that super high level and amass incredible amounts of wealth, the items that the "average" player wishes to purchase or even SEE on the market exist and are cheap.

If we didn't have the upper tier, there would be NO middle tier and it would be a far far rougher environment. This was true back in the days of exalt / eternal crafting. Near-perfect items were almost as expensive as perfect items. Nowadays, near-perfect can be 1/100th the cost of a perfect item because there are SO MANY failed perfect attempts that flood the market BECAUSE the upper crust has so much currency to craft with. A great example of this is the current "value" of magebloods in this league: because there are MORE upper tier mf-ers farming these, they are dirt cheap for everyone else. It is the OPPOSITE of what you seem to think is happening.

People who play at super high level have no interest to sell trash items for 100c. Even if they have spare sell space, responding to a 100c deal means losing more than 100c in div per hour scale, lol.

So my opinion is that that middle tier items you speak of come from middle tier players, so upper tier is unrelated here.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

If you are focused on the MOST powerful and MOST expensive items in the game, sure...MAYBE this poses a problem to you (I still don't believe it does...). But if you drop your expectations by probably less than 10%, the pace at which you can improve is astronomically FASTER and CHEAPER than it would be in an alternate market with less currency and less high end mirror crafters around.

As you approach pinnacle content, you'll inevitably meet the need to get MORE powerful items to clear it. If you know how to clear feared or ubers with 100c items, please tell me.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Also for the record, I have never once played SSF and never will. So all of my experience with the game is coming from trade league. And I've had no issues whatsoever, at any time. I've gotten mirror items on my own, with no mf. I've gotten all the items I could ever want, on my own or via trade. No one else's mf-ing or playstyle has ever had the slightest impact on MY ability to progress my characters. It is only your own heavy mental focus on what mf and rmt COULD be doing to your experience that actually allows it to HAVE an effect in the first place.

I believe you, but don't have 12 years to spend on a single game :)
As said before, happy it all worked out for you and a lot of other people here.

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Echothesis wrote:

If this was SSF (which is personal no-go in poe because no party), I'd agree, and would prefer not to care about what other players do, yes. However in trade, drop rates are balanced around trade and I have to interact with trade to get rarer items that I need (this is the whole point of poe, to try and assemble something new, yes?). And prices on those items are formed from other people's excesses, based on amounts of currency they have, not on what I and other peons have.

So, elite players basically push me to play in the same tempo as they do, if I wish to trade with them. Which just feels tiresome and irrelevant by now (GGG nukes in Standard don't help too). Ended up stopping playing and occasionally ranting on these forums. Maybe new incentive appears when they add some actual new content in Standard, which means never :)

Not even surprised at this point,

If you feel like you have to play at the same tempo/style/gear/build/way than any "elite" player, whatever this goal post means, in order to interact with trade, you have either a very rudimentary or no understanding of the game and its mechanics. This would be like how a beginner would approach this game, not anyone with any experience in POE. Aka skill/knowledge issue

Skill and knowledge is built each league, well if you pay attention and engage with material rather than stay passive. (active learner)

Similarly contradictory to your play at the same tempo:
Something that comes with both skill and knowledge is learning to find out what people are NOT doing in the league and capitalizing off of it. A perfect example of this is delve where Doryani's maps are selling for 30divs, auls unid ammys for 2, meadow for 10 divs, perfects for 50c each in bulk... etc. etc. And, oh look at that, gilded sulphite scarabs are they worth anything? Nope.

Can play at any pace/tempo you want and make a killing so long as you have some know how.


You also do not have to interact with trade to get rarer items or upgrades, even in trade league. This is another, very rudimentary or flawed or simplified, understanding of how to increase your power level. If you think the only way to accomplish this is to load up trade and search then you will probably run out of currency very quickly and quit before you accomplish anything and/or get ripped off for something that was easy to craft. And yes there are plenty of expensive stuff on trade that are easy to craft for MUCH MUCH MUCH less than what people ask for.


You know crafting does exist in trade league right?

Continuing on the have to interact with trade idea:
You dont have to buy completed items in trade league as well. You can buy cheap bases and finish/sacrifice mods you want or can afford to not have as a cheaper option. (Skill/knowledge)

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Echothesis wrote:

As you approach pinnacle content, you'll inevitably meet the need to get MORE powerful items to clear it. If you know how to clear feared or ubers with 100c items, please tell me.

Wow.

???? 100c is not 10% less than BIS on any item.

Why are we drawing the line at 100c items? Where are you getting this value from?

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Echothesis wrote:

I believe you, but don't have 12 years to spend on a single game :)
As said before, happy it all worked out for you and a lot of other people here.

Yea I mean I too have experienced no issues getting currency or items in this game as long as I have played it on trade. Regardless of some MF users or not.

Not sure what 12 years to spend on a single game means, but you definitely have time to spend several years to type out factually incorrect things on POE forums while also admitting to not even playing the game. You do you.

The reason I brought up my experience, and the trickle-down description is because it makes your entire point of view moot and wrong.

You are clearly NOT talking about the middle tier items I am, otherwise you would recognize that an item you can get for 5 div now, might be 100 divine if we didn't have the high end crafters.

The items on the market YOU want to buy exist because there are players attempting to craft mirror items. This is FACT. We all know that items of any caliber greater than "trash" are not DROPPED but created. And the average crafter is not sitting there crafting mid-gear to sell...maybe SOME do, but certainly not enough to flood the market with powerful sub-10, 20, 50 divine crafts.

Your interpretation of mf, crafting, and "mirror-tier" is just foundationally flawed. It is easy to blame the "specter/demon known as mf" for your own shortcomings within the game. I am merely pointing out that your experience with the game is overall EASIER and available at many different paces BECAUSE of the things you hate so very very much and want to vilify.


Also, I'll let you in on a little "crafting" secret. The full-time crafters spend a LOT of time in their Hideout NOT mapping, NOT gathering currency. So how do they actually fund their crafts? By flipping every single item that doesn't turn out correctly. Whether its 1 divine, 10 divine, 50 divines, 100 divines, ANYTHING cheaper than a mirror gets put into the market and at a VERY rapid pace. It is ridiculous to think top end crafters just sit there waiting for ONLY the perfect items to sell...while relying on what? They just TRASH the multi-divine items they create?

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jsuslak313 wrote:

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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

Go ask support to count them if you're so concerned with the validity of it, its true and im not sure why you care about that angle and not the whole point of that post.

shaking my head.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Go ask support to count them if you're so concerned with the validity of it :)

Dude you shouldn't be playing PoE if you have a super power like that! You can basically accomplish ANYTHING!

To acquire 19000 additional hours in the span of, at most, 4300 hours of total time while also having the game uninstalled for a large portion of that is astounding!

Your weeks/months long uninstall campaign has killed any credibility your posts ever carried with me. You proceeded to reinstall and come back during the league that literally FEATURED one of your biggest complaints with the game: unique ascendancy-only skills, lmao.

But I digress, not worth my time. Unlike you...I don't have magical time manipulation powers in this life. Only in my isekai OP form. Also, for the record, Zizaran who is arguably one of the most prolific and regular PoE streamers only has around 25000 hours. And thats with his literal livelihood dependent on playing the game as much as possible.