Game is turning into a glass cannon only builds

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ArtCrusade wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Right. What a great 40/40 PoE player take.

He is correct tho. Path of Exile has had Steam achievement for as long as I can remember, even when the game only had 3 acts. More achievements were added over time, which is one source of inaccuracy.

Another is that Path of Exile is free to play. Just adding the game to your library without booting it up once counts as a "player" who has no achievements to their name.

Also, the barrier of entry to just try out the game since it's free is so much lower for Path of Exile. But if I pay 70 dollars for a game I want some playtime out of it. My money's worth, so to speak.

I don't think you don't know this. Why pretend?

Because on Steam, it exists in whole, per account. If you started playing PoE, then stopped, uninstalled, then started again, or took pauses, or whatever, that is still a relevant data point. The time doesn't really matter because it isn't tracked that way. Even if a singular achievement isn't possible at a given time, it would have been for a specific account at specific time. If you removed or edited those, it would also be "inaccurate". Fact is it's the best measurement we have, and while not perfect, it's largely on scale, and a good indicator. (Many millions of unique players over these 10+ years)

I admit of course we don't have GGG internal numbers which they obviously review. When you hear Mark talk about the known issues they have with new players and retaining more causal ones, where do you think that is coming from? To act like this isn't' an issue, or to minimize it, its flatly disingenuous. GGG knows it's a problem, has addressed it significantly in PoE2, and Mark has commented on taking steps to help with PoE1.

I don't understand why some of you guys, that are clearly plugged in to what GGG is doing and saying, are being so obtuse about this? They recognize the issue, why don't you?

Again you put words in my mouth Darth and I don't appreciate that very much. Can you quote where I say that there is no issue retaining new players? Or that there aren't big barriers of entry with Path of Exile? Where is it, Darth? Stop.

I push back when you use inaccurate statistics for your argument.

Mr. Crusade, there are multiple individuals posting back and forth in this thread. You jumped in as well. I don't think its a difficult thing to ask that you review those to ensure the context is accurate before responding.

There is no need to project on this personally. I didn't say you specifically said this, in fact I pluralized it as "some of you guys".

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Mr. Crusade, there are multiple individuals posting back and forth in this thread. You jumped in as well. I don't think its a difficult thing to ask that you review those to ensure the context is accurate before responding.

There is no need to project on this personally. I didn't say you specifically said this, in fact I pluralized it as "some of you guys".

Oh I am so sorry, Darth. My bad thinking you addressed me after quoting me directly and saying that. Totally my fault!

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DarthSki44 wrote:

There is no need to project on this personally. I didn't say you specifically said this, in fact I pluralized it as "some of you guys".

Who is it aimed at then, me? Would be nice if you would clarify.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Because on Steam, it exists in whole, per account. If you started playing PoE, then stopped, uninstalled, then started again, or took pauses, or whatever, that is still a relevant data point. The time doesn't really matter because it isn't tracked that way. Even if an singular achievement isn't possible at a given time, it would have been for a specific account at specific time. If you removed or edited those, it would also be "inaccurate". Fact is it's the best measurement we have, and while not perfect, it's largely on scale, and a good indicator. (Many millions of unique players over these 10+ years)

Except they're so flawed and even outdated by years. Like it was mentioned, some people added PoE to their list, and never really played it, yet count as +1. Plenty of people stopped playing among past 12+ years, some people stopped playing videogames during those years at all, how many bounced off from 3act game. Applying such tangled data over so long period of time is just futile and as inaccurate as can be. It would be different if PoE would be a year or 2 game, bit is a horrible indicator, that shows nothing after 12 years.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I admit of course we don't have GGG internal numbers which they obviously review. When you hear Mark talk about the known issues they have with new players and retaining more causal ones, where do you think that is coming from? To act like this isn't' an issue, or to minimize it, its flatly disingenuous. GGG knows it's a problem, has addressed it significantly in PoE2, and Mark has commented on taking steps to help with PoE1.

I don't understand why some of you guys, that are clearly plugged in to what GGG is doing and saying, are being so obtuse about this? They recognize the issue, why don't you?

Every game want to reach new players, question is about the method. Because it is same issue D4 have, yet D4 solution to casualize the game and make it that anyone can play and win it nearly instantly didn't help at all, so this doesn't seems to be a solution to increase player numbers. If 70% of diablo 4 players quit during campaign, and 40% quit almost instantly - that shows multiple issues that doesn't seems to be fixed at all. This is actually the same path diablo 3 was taking, they're repeating their own mistakes.
Difference is, d4 just grabbed money and don't care anymore.

I myself already kinda showed to DarthS at least once that poe achievements statistics are not at all abnormal for a f2p game... its absolutely standard for less than 20% to finish the story and around 1% to stick around enough to do uber content, if anything, poe have above average retention for a f2p

That said, its kinda the same for D4, really... much less than half of the players finishing the story is standard on steam: i can see right now that on FF12 ZA, little more than 50% even reached the point of the story ashe joins and less than 20% completed the story. Similar for resident evil 2, just around 60% completed the first act and less than 30% defeated G5. Devil may Cry 5, same story: Less than half reached the half point of the story and the percentage of players that finished it is no more than 35%(likely closer to 25%)

There are some reasons for it... for one, many people nowadays like to pirate a game before buiyng it because decent demos are uber rare, so a decent number of players already had the first playtro when they get a legit copy of the game
I myself was once a guy that pushed myself to finish every game i had, but today that i have a stable income and find games rather cheap(and dont have time to no-life) tend to not care enough to push myself if i find the game is no longer entertaining me

As for how poe cathers to hardcores... its the business model of GGG. Every f2p on the market does this to varying degrees, its nothing special because the money is on the dedicated players. It simply dont make sense to think much(let alone set the game to cather) of players that only finish the story. Their purpose is just spread the word about poe's existence and maybe attract potential future dedicated players, but they themselves are not(and should not) considered potential customers

Because, really... whats even the amount of people that buy a suporter pack or will fork money for a skin when they will only play the game for maybe a dozen hours every 4 months??? From GGG's perspective, what would even be the point in devoting significant resources to these people??? The general rule of the market is the 80/20 principle, you dont cather to that 80% unless you want to be out of business

General gaming rule: You want a casual-focused game? Counterintuitivelly, dont look on f2p library, unless you get entertained by VERY basic level of gameplay or the game in question is a simulation of some real card, board or somesuch game

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

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Nomancs wrote:

Except they're so flawed and even outdated by years. Like it was mentioned, some people added PoE to their list, and never really played it, yet count as +1. Plenty of people stopped playing among past 12+ years, some people stopped playing videogames during those years at all, how many bounced off from 3act game. Applying such tangled data over so long period of time is just futile and as inaccurate as can be.

Your anecdotal "I feel" arguments don't exactly help make a point. What those numbers do tell us is that we need to look at the higher end content of the game and the relative percentage of completions. They are anything but "outdated and useless".

Fact is, only 6% of Steam players have defeated The Elder, and only 4.4% have killed The Shaper. These nunbers do tell quite a story. The Black Star also has a completion rate of 4.4%, but the Shaper was added in September 2016, while The Black Star was added in February 2022. The Elder was added in December 2017. What this data tells us is that, relatively speaking, more people have reached endgame since the game's release, mainly due to the large influx of players in recent years, but overall only a very small percentage of players ever do.

So, yeah, it's in GGG's best interest to make the game more accessible while not making it too easy.

Thats wrong tho, as big percentage of those finished playing before Shaper or Elder was added to the game, and that shows in old vs new achievements.
Also, that 6% out of 15% that finished A10, so that is 40% who finished story that killed elder, not even counting for people who quit playing overall. And it is still flawed data by a lot.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Lol indeed.

Those limited D4 stats only further prove out the PoE "debunked" stats are even more likely accurate, since they follow a similar vein, of a similar swath of players. I think we often take for granted what casual actually means, or how short lived attention spans are, given gaming choices. (30% is still more than double the PoE campaign number, with far higher numbers, even though PoE is f2p)

The massive differences being scale of course, and from a business perspective, D4 monetizing all those players. If you pay $70 and quit, and then even go on to spend more with an expansion a year, what exactly is the problem from a Blizzard perspective? They are not reliant as much on live service mtx.

Truth be told, I'm not even sure what the point being made is? That PoE shouldn't concern itself with onbaording new players, or appealing to less elite players, because a percentage of them will quit anyways? That's your business prop? Hmmm... ok?

I hear all the time that D4 Bad, D4 dead, no one plays, etc... yet it sells many millions of copies. If you maintain D4 sucks and no one plays, or permanently left, do you then honestly expect VoH to flop? Maybe you do, but I will take the over on that one. And if it does well how do explain or reconcile that with the previous premise?

*side note, the amount of preorder VoH mtx I've seen in-game is significant. True, that's anecdotal, but I would lean towards some big VoH numbers.

This shouldnt have to be explained, but you cant just ignore context.

So adding in context:

POE released on steam in 2013
Diablo 4 released on steam in 2023

Path of Exile:


Diablo 4



So in conclusion, while both achievement correlation to success of the game, are weak. The magnitude of difference between the two is nearly a decade in difference. You have one game (poe) where its achievements didnt even exist for YEARS, and another game where its achievements are all within the last year.

Taking this context into account, and looking at some of the weakest achievements, that havent even been done by most players in Diablo 4, we can come to conclusion that, yes...

Diablo 4 bad.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

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Nomancs wrote:

Thats wrong tho, as big percentage of those finished playing before Shaper or Elder was added to the game, and that shows in old vs new achievements.

Once again with these super subjective and non-factual statements. I'm getting tired of this. a.) You don't know that, you can't. b.) We got WAY more players in periods after Shaper and Elder have already been around for years. Like, relatively speaking, it doesn't matter because percentages are relative.

If you're getting tired of using subjective data, don't do it, as you're now ;)

Out of 15% that ever finished A10, 40% killed elder. Safe to assume that plenty of people stopped playing after the story.
60% of people who ever used vaal fragment, killed elder.
74% that ever did red map with scarab, killed elder.

You're making mistake comparing this data to every steam user that ever downloaded the game.

And ofc it is as flawed data as it can be, and absolutely subjective, this is why using steam achievements for PoE, 12y+ old game, while plenty of those challenges were changed among years, is just pointless.

Legit question for all you guys talking about retention data and whatnot...

What, in your vision, is a good retention rate? What is the percentage of players that complete the story or kill shaper should be for the retention to be considered "good"?