Does POE hate community gaming?

Disclaimer, I am no pro mechanically or build wise, lore wise etc, just someone that loves the game


So I was playing the other day and people in general chat were talking about how SSF players are like vegans, and you don't have to ask if they play SSF they will just tell you etc, and it got me thinking. Does POE hate community gaming?

I for one game to escape day to day life, and reality, and when I do that I want to do that with friends, and make new friends. To me personally it's more enjoyable. I love a good community, and it feels great to be a part of one. That being said I would never in a million years play SSF. Even if I wanted the challenge I would just play that play style in regular trade league so I can talk to friends, maybe get in some perm allo map parties with friends etc etc.

Then it got me thinking... Is GGG against the community gaming together? I started looking back at all the things that used to make me so passionate about this game, and why I fell in love with it, and why I opened my wallet to it more than any game I have ever played. I went down the nostalgia rabbit hole and there I was, absolutely, positively, missing seeing the community getting together for races. Weather it be an endless ledge, 30 minute rush league etc etc, it was so fun watching so may people get involved and gaming together. The chat in races was epic, so friendly, a wealth of knowledge, and plenty of good old fashioned banter, and good times.

I know GGG has always leaned on streamers to help the community right from the early days with Kripp, and I love and respect that, but I shouldn't have to follow a streamer, or reddit to get into some sort of race event that they host, GGG should be doing that. Why was it taken away? It was so good for the community.

Speaking of taking things away, they flat out abandoned PVP. That was another great community gaming thing. For a long time in the game all I did was log in, go to the sarn arena, casually PVP with everyone, while making life long friendships, and waiting to do some real duels when you get into it with people. Then the arena gets really packed and people start making capture the flag games, and tournaments. People were battling day in and day out to get a spot on the leaderboards. Low lvl PVP was insanely competitive and didn't break the bank. Even the PVP forum on here was absolutely popping off.

So why get rid of great community events like this and hype stuff like anti social SSF, like you get some badge of cool because you did it without a community? Why aren't we massively rewarded for party play? A little bit of quant? Tiny XP bonus? Getting community involvement is what makes a game thrive and IMO should be a top priority. Maybe I'm just old and bitter that the game likes to get rid of most of the things I love.

Anyways, no hate to the SSF guys, that's not my intention here, if that's your jam, rock on and have fun. It's just the polar opposite of what I want out of gaming, and I know I am not alone on this.

Outsourced to Discord and Twitch. Overtime poe got minmaxed, and smart people + streamers naturally progressed to predominantly solo play (whether trade league or ssf) while socializing in Discord or Twitch. Sometimes smart people and those streamers will duo or party play afaik.

Also a few global chat channels I'm aware of have their own internal community.

- global 6666 is the minion channel, ghazzy sometimes appears in there. Past couple leagues its been the "i need a spectre" channel.
- global 911 is Pohx's rf + player friendly + crafting help channel. Great channel.
- global 773 is the ssf channel. "hurr durr you play by yourself" but some are very social and chat often. Overall very nice people there.

Also, ggg has incentives for support characters in group play with the most recent effort being link skills. If someone is willing to do it, link skills are OP. And there's group MF but that's for a different thread. So no, ggg is not against people playing together. The 2012 - 2016 version of PoE sure it was much more likely for randoms to create a party and play the game together, I see it as people figured out the game and what they need to do to play the game. Whats fun for them and whats an efficient use of their time.

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kdubbarizzle wrote:

Outsourced to Discord and Twitch.

And you don't see anything wrong with that and the growth of the game? That's almost as bad as the years of having to use 3rd party websites to trade. How does that incentivize new players to play, to expand our player base for survival? Imagine being brand new and not knowing what to do then when you finally get a slight clue you feel gate kept by people in private communities? Why would they want to stick around? It's not like we got some crazy compelling story line or something lol

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kdubbarizzle wrote:

Also a few global chat channels I'm aware of have their own internal community.

- global 6666 is the minion channel, ghazzy sometimes appears in there. Past couple leagues its been the "i need a spectre" channel.
- global 911 is Pohx's rf + player friendly + crafting help channel. Great channel.
- global 773 is the ssf channel. "hurr durr you play by yourself" but some are very social and chat often. Overall very nice people there.

Yeah definitely, and I tend to hang in 820 since it sometimes leads to stuff to do, but that alone isn't helping generate a healthy community feeling.

hoho maybe

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Phoenix320 wrote:

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kdubbarizzle wrote:

Outsourced to Discord and Twitch.

And you don't see anything wrong with that and the growth of the game? That's almost as bad as the years of having to use 3rd party websites to trade. How does that incentivize new players to play, to expand our player base for survival? Imagine being brand new and not knowing what to do then when you finally get a slight clue you feel gate kept by people in private communities? Why would they want to stick around? It's not like we got some crazy compelling story line or something lol

I mean, I have been asking for more social features for a while now, both friends and guilds. But Discord and Twitch are both ways to communicate with people outside of a game and the only alternative would be to have a social app specifically for the game instead. It'd solve a problem that has already been solved

I see that as a non-issue, really.

I see critical growth between 2016 - 2024 indirectly because of Twitch and Discord. I am in favour of those two entities, and I'm sure ggg would speak favourably of the effect Twitch and Discord has had on their game and their profits.

For growing the game as of July 2024 I am the wrong person for that topic. AFAIK majority of new players don't get past act 2 and ggg is ok with this. Their game not ours, we just play it. For those that do reach maps its kinda word-of-mouth from there and (hopefully) find their way to a Pohx guide or a Zizaran guide. If they don't I suppose ggg is ok with people messing up and making mistakes; they'll either learn from it or find something else to do with their time.

Day9 did a great job documenting his first experience with PoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5t8Absu0BU with a very nice speech about game design starting at 1:28:45, its about 15 minutes long. Definitely recommend a listen.

I have been playing since 2013 and I was a huge D2 player and in a guild in WOW for a few years right before I started playing POE. Thus I came into POE wanting and expecting a lot of group playing. It only took a short time for me to not want to ever play with people - I tell you it was bad back then. It is far better now (yes it is) but I still only play in groups for carries and power leveling 5-ways.

POE is setup fine for doing content in groups if somehow you can get a group of friends who are approximately the same proficiency as you are. That is very difficult. And then even if the players are roughly equal there will almost without fail be differences in opinions on strategy and what content to fight in. For most of us we are far better off as solo players.

Speaking for myself here, yes I do prefer to play solo since that is how I relax.

Haven't always been that way, but at some point I realized that the vast majority of people in multiplayer games are simply dead weight that you have to keep pulling up the hill.
The issue is even more complicated whilst playing with friends, since it's awkward to tell them that they're bad and most people can't/won't accept any criticism and therefore never improve.

Instead of getting frustrated at someone else's ineptitude, I'd rather only have myself to blame if something goes wrong, since that I can actually fix.

I wouldn't attribute a strong human emotion like hate to a business.

The closest a business comes to any sort of emotion is love and we don't need to say for what. And even then when I say "closest" I am overindulging in personification.

As for the community, it cost me a grand and a lot of brainstorming with a few devs to create a pretty successful community event involving solving a riddle and finding a hidden item. That was ever so briefly glorious to watch.

GGG have never been big on running community events of their own. Too busy fostering a cut-throat environment, which is I suppose a community in its own delightfully chaotic way.

They knew and I suspect know what is expected of them, and just how quickly their edgy fanbase will turn on them if it seems they ever slide too close to being co-op friendly.

At least with PoE 1.

PoE 2 will either be co-op friendly or it will fail. All development news we have seen so far indicates GGG are aware of this too (couch co-op, skills that interact between players, console attentiveness in general).

I do not miss caring about PoE 1, that's for sure. It's already dead as far as I am concerned. Oh it'll make more money for a while but remember that love I mentioned earlier? It tends to drive a company where profits are most likely and a limping, overweight, rundown champion of yesteryear vs a shiny new thoroughbred with years of wins ahead of it is not a tough choice.

And no. You can't have both. Again: not optimal for profits.

If you're really lucky it'll be a guild wars 1 vs 2 situation, where a tiny core of diehards keep the lights on for 1 but the official "game" is 2. If you're reaaaaally lucky.

the way i see it, gaming communities form naturally.

the company can choose to motivate them but dont need to. the communities will continue their existence regardless.

as for races and community events. thats all marketing. i dont think GGG needs any marketing anymore.

they've cornered the market. people who like dclones will eventually find POE.

those who love POE would still be playing POE regardless of any community events existing.

if its a cost they can cut. its logical for them to just ignore community events.

let the community make their own events.