Future of the game looks grim

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roundishcap wrote:

Congrats on having a release date for poe2, but the way leagues are going their isn't gong to be enough people left to sustain 2 games as a service.

The biggest issue is that poe feels designed to require too much time. In my opinion the ultra scarcity of notable loot is going to have to be adjusted in the players favor.

Making a build feel fun to play shouldn't require a much investment. Relying on stuff like pob/trade awakened/3rd 9arty loot filters only makes these kind of pain points worse. Let alone the fact you need some bonkers items to offset the slow base attack and cast speed.

Poe feels designed to burn people out. I don't think having two of these things running at once is going to garner good favor.

Basic premise is correct but….

IF GGG runs the two games staggered (6 weeks apart league starts) AND different league mechanics on each game (time for more staff at GGG lol) they could actually boost player retention as a company.

I just think that people that usually play poe1 will remain playing poe1. And people who try other games when getting bored of poe1 will probably play poe2. This way I won`t see some of the creators on twitch playing boring games...

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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jsuslak313 wrote:

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Xzorn wrote:

If you wanted to keep the zoom zoom one-slap the screen power fantasy. Oh well. As another poster mentioned they make the game and I doubt they ever wanted it to go that direction.

Well.....they were the ones that MADE the game go that way. It's pretty ridiculous to say they didn't "ever want it to go in that direction". They literally spent 5+ years MAKING it go in that direction. And they continue to do so.

To make that statement is to say that GGG has literally made every mistake imaginable, and not once learned from it. Personally, I don't think they are that stupid....

While under the guise of making an expansion, Could have come clean sooner.

I'll just reply here since it should grab both of ya.

GGG did make mistakes. Many. They have the same problem Warframe does where they tend to follow gaming trends. They triple Enemy Density which is a near impossible thing to balance. They make Chase items despite in the past saying Headhunter was a mistake. Unlike Warframe they have at least tried to fix these issues and it usually lead to heavy community backlash parroting.

This is why I believe they just went for a different. Players are more accepting of game changes if it's a different or version 2.0 of the game. They probably genuinely wanted it to be part of the original but thought about past backlash and many of the problems that plague the current PoE. The game just can't be fixed without drastic changes that are going to shock.

I can't answer things like why Melee was left in a trashcan for years or why Caster/Bow types got back 5 years of power creep in 3 leagues. If I had to guess it's because of build herding. Why put development time into something no one is using? Even if they caused it. Even now there's far more non-melee builds. I'm using a 0.0% Slam skill and it's great but I love that hipster crap.

I'm certain POE2 early access launch will be massive, even low budget Last Epoch had huge numbers at launch.

But what truly matters is how many players they can retain. If combination of the POE1 and POE2 player base is still 150% of the current POE1 playerbase after 4 leagues than is it truly succesfull.

Until we play POE2 can't we know if it will be successful. But I am certain POE2will be harder and at least as grindy as POE2. All demo players agree on this aspect

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Xzorn wrote:

I'll just reply here since it should grab both of ya.

GGG did make mistakes. Many. They have the same problem Warframe does where they tend to follow gaming trends. They triple Enemy Density which is a near impossible thing to balance. They make Chase items despite in the past saying Headhunter was a mistake. Unlike Warframe they have at least tried to fix these issues and it usually lead to heavy community backlash parroting.

This is why I believe they just went for a different. Players are more accepting of game changes if it's a different or version 2.0 of the game. They probably genuinely wanted it to be part of the original but thought about past backlash and many of the problems that plague the current PoE. The game just can't be fixed without drastic changes that are going to shock.

I can't answer things like why Melee was left in a trashcan for years or why Caster/Bow types got back 5 years of power creep in 3 leagues. If I had to guess it's because of build herding. Why put development time into something no one is using? Even if they caused it. Even now there's far more non-melee builds. I'm using a 0.0% Slam skill and it's great but I love that hipster crap.

Yes they have made mistakes, but they would have to be completely blind to NOT see the direction of the game from 3.0 onward as becoming more and more zoomzoom. Instead, they leaned into it and developed the game that way all the way to 3.13. They then TRIED to scale it back.....only to give up in the very next league. So no....they definitely INTENDED for this game to keep going zoom zoom. Newer mechanics still favor that playstyle.


Regarding PoE 2 vs. PoE 1 expansion: there were many many other factors that led to the decision of splitting it into a sequel standalone game. I would say the current environment of PoE is a large factor, but not in the way you describe.

PoE 1 is pure bloat at this point. And for better or worse, standard still exists. Everything broken that has ever been left in the game is....still there in standard. This is a major problem for trying to create a NEW game. They only had two choices here: erase all standard gear, or new game. They opted for the less painful approach on current players. It is both unfair and unreasonable to demand GGG to spend resources to create some kind of editor that changes the MILLIONS of standard items into the new version of the game. Think about standard map tab conversion: thats just maps and it has never worked! Another reason why PoE 2 is separate, probably the biggest reason, is that it is built entirely upon a different engine so to speak. The animations are different. The itemization is different. Skill interactions are likely different. The tree is different. There was simply no way to put their intended changes onto an existing game. It's the reason why most other games already do standalone sequels. There is a reason why there is a D1, D2, D3, and D4 and not just endless expansions of D1 or D2. Same reasoning here. PoE is not unique in the game world that it can last forever on a system built over a decade ago.

But the zoomzoom of PoE 1......that was all planned, reinforced, and encouraged by GGG. It was their vision in practice, no matter what some of them might say in public.


Even though the company line was that PoE 2 was going to be an add-on to PoE 1 in 2019.....it takes a real fool to believe that was even possible. Especially when watching the trailers that were released even way back then. There were too many intended changes to the CORE game for it to work, and there were many voices back then and throughout the whole development that were saying as much. Why would they ever think it was feasible to take all existing items, skills, and interactions across 10+ years of standard wasteland....and balance it ALL into a new system and expect that system to work. No way PoE 2 is going to be the same game. And lo and behold....its not.

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TayPoE wrote:

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

i'm curious to see what they do with poe2....will they try to lure in different people like more casual gamers or just target the same people they target with current poe. if poe2 will be just like poe1 then a lot of people will just pick one game and focus on that. most people wont have time to grind two games for 8 hours each.

Poe2 will not be for casuals. Casuals will probably be stuck in Act1.

so they make a second game for the same audience...why not try to attract new players? i dont get it. people make fun of D4 but last time i checked they make a lot of money from casual gamers

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

so they make a second game for the same audience...why not try to attract new players? i dont get it. people make fun of D4 but last time i checked they make a lot of money from casual gamers

I just watched a yt vid that showcases the feature where support gems get recommended to you(option that you can enable/disable according to the vid) and it showed greyed out support gems that won't work with the selected skill. So i am pretty sure they have a goal in mind which is to attract more new players to the game and provide more userfriendly interface and such...

You can complain about that if you are a diehard pob builder and theorycrafter, a mastermind of micromanagement and whatnot, but let's be honest how many players are just following a guide from somebody else?
If the new game leaves more breathing room for more players to explore the game on their own without guides and spoilers that is great as far as i am concerned, as long as they keep msot of their core "pillars" which make their game so much more attractive than modern blizzard games.

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

so they make a second game for the same audience...why not try to attract new players? i dont get it. people make fun of D4 but last time i checked they make a lot of money from casual gamers

After milking millions of nostalgia buyers and spending hundreds of millions worldwide on marketing to attract casual players who didnt grow up on any Diablo game or any other Blizz product.


The casual market is one of the most expensive and volatile markets there is.
Dont go there, if you dont have to.

people wont have time to grind two games for 8+ hours each....so they will probably only choose one game. i suspect poe2 will get all the dev attention and updates so if people have to choose, they will choose that game. i just hope they wont completely abandon current poe

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

i just hope they wont completely abandon current poe

Why would they?

Didnt they say the past couple of leagues has been developed by a crew of 12-15 people? Making that financially viable or even profitable isnt that hard.

Plus they are planning to release staggered leagues with 6-8 weeks in between each launch. How many people are still playing actively in any given league past the 6-8 week mark?
Not that many.


Real question is: Are players going to burn out, if they feel the need to partake in every single launch scenario for both games and go superhard for a week or two?

Time will tell.