Vision of the game: Singlepayer or Multiplayer?

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1. That means, no trading, no partys, no guilds. It's just you and the game
2. Everything you need (gear, gems, orbs etc.) has to be found by you. You need a certain unique for your build? You need to find it yourself. You don't have perfect jewellers? Well, you have to find it yourself.

If PoE2 is supposed to be more like a sinlgeplayer experience, everything in the game should be beatable and obtainable without relying on external help. But for that - and in order to keep build variety high - players need higher drop rates and/or ways to get certain items for granted, if they do something for it (like unique recipees or less RNG with crafting). Yes, this would have a negative impact on economy/trading (inflation), but players would have enough ressources and had a better chance of getting certain uniques to play the game without relying on external help from other players. At least, if PoE2 aims for that kind of experience.

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1. That means, game progression is heavily focused around player interaction. Playing as a party, creating and being part of guilds and ofc trading.
2. Everything you need will most likely only be achieveable by relying on external help. Buying items from others and overcoming challenger in a party would be natural.

If PoE2 is supposed to be more like a multiplayer experience, then - in my opinion - trading is at a good spot and only needs QoL improvements. Right now, players can buy everything they need from others, but the trading experience itself isn't good, becuase very often people don't answer or suddenly raise the price. Also you need to get out of the game and visit a webpage to actually trade in a halfway efficient way. But is trading enough for a multiplayer experience? I guess not. MMORPGs, a very different kind of genre, have raids and most content is easier to beat as a group. Some content can only be done with groups or guilds. And droprates are so low, that buying stuff is a natural part of the gameplayloop. And for a good reason, since MMORPGs need mechanics that kinda enforce player-interaction. But is PoE2 supposed to have mechanics that fit more into MMORPG-like games? That's the question.

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Brisket5450#4084 wrote:

very well put. imo they can just copy Last Epoch CoF and its crafting. most viable thing to do ever.

but the current state makes it easier to sell stash tabs, you played the game you know what I mean.

for now I just quit and left a negative review on Steam.

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AceNightfire#0980 wrote:

The game has features like clearing maps as a party or creating/joining a guild, but if you take a look, there is no content that can only be beaten as a group or guild and there are features like SSF that emphasize singleplayer gameplay. So why do I bring up the term mutliplayer? Well, since it's not entirely clear what PoE2 is supposed to be (singleplayer or multiplayer), it's hard to balance other features that are influenced by this vision.

One of the most discussed topics is trading and loot drops. And changing loot has a big effect on economy (trading). And it's very clear that the community seems to be very divided when discussing this. And that's mostly because PoE2 (and also 1) are not very clear about the question, if the focus of the game is supposed to be singleplayer or multiplayer.

Lets take a look at two perspectives:

What if this game was designed for singleplayer?

"

1. That means, no trading, no partys, no guilds. It's just you and the game
2. Everything you need (gear, gems, orbs etc.) has to be found by you. You need a certain unique for your build? You need to find it yourself. You don't have perfect jewellers? Well, you have to find it yourself.

If PoE2 is supposed to be more like a sinlgeplayer experience, everything in the game should be beatable and obtainable without relying on external help. But for that - and in order to keep build variety high - players need higher drop rates and/or ways to get certain items for granted, if they do something for it (like unique recipees or less RNG with crafting). Yes, this would have a negative impact on economy/trading (inflation), but players would have enough ressources and had a better chance of getting certain uniques to play the game without relying on external help from other players. At least, if PoE2 aims for that kind of experience.

What if this game was designed for multiplayer?

"

1. That means, game progression is heavily focused around player interaction. Playing as a party, creating and being part of guilds and ofc trading.
2. Everything you need will most likely only be achieveable by relying on external help. Buying items from others and overcoming challenger in a party would be natural.

If PoE2 is supposed to be more like a multiplayer experience, then - in my opinion - trading is at a good spot and only needs QoL improvements. Right now, players can buy everything they need from others, but the trading experience itself isn't good, becuase very often people don't answer or suddenly raise the price. Also you need to get out of the game and visit a webpage to actually trade in a halfway efficient way. But is trading enough for a multiplayer experience? I guess not. MMORPGs, a very different kind of genre, have raids and most content is easier to beat as a group. Some content can only be done with groups or guilds. And droprates are so low, that buying stuff is a natural part of the gameplayloop. And for a good reason, since MMORPGs need mechanics that kinda enforce player-interaction. But is PoE2 supposed to have mechanics that fit more into MMORPG-like games? That's the question.

From my perspective, PoE2 is neither. It's not true singleplayer, because I cannot get some content without the help of others (buying uniques and perfect rares) and it's not true multiplayer, since I play 90% of the game solo. The other 10% are just times I invest if I want to buy something from someone else or if a friends joins and we do 1-2 maps together. So PoE2 seems to be in a strange position, that tries to cater to many peoples taste when it comes to the question of singleplayer and multiplayer, but that often is a tradeoff that has negative impacts on the game. One example is trading and droprates. You can't balance it. If you raise drop rates and implement unique recipees, you will ruin the trade economy (inflation). If you keep the drop rates low (especially from stronger uniques and orbs like divines), people will use their currency to trade stuff, instead of crafting. And sometimes it's better to decide for one side (singleplayer vs multiplayer) instead of trying to create an inferior compromise between the two options, that may lead to more dissatisfaction.

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Jabletron#5466 wrote:

ARPGs have almost never been balanced around multiplayer. The ability to out-scale the buffs to enemies due to more party members by simply scaling your party more, has always existed. All the way back to Diablo 2.

I don't really mind this relative to how it affects my gameplay. I will basically never group up, so the game being balanced around single player just makes sense for me. And that is probably 95-99% of the playerbase.

Where it can get bad is when the Empyreon-type groups start spamming items into the economy. And that certainly does have an impact on the game. But there's basically nothing you can do about it.

You're never going to get this genre to be multiplayer-dominant, or dependent. There's just no way this playerbase wants to search for and join groups as a predominant way to play - not early, mid, late, or ultra late game.

I think the conversation is okay to have, there's probably tweaks here or there that can help one way or another. But gating content to groups is asking for serious trouble without completely changing genres.

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AceNightfire#0980 wrote:

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Jabletron#5466 wrote:

ARPGs have almost never been balanced around multiplayer. The ability to out-scale the buffs to enemies due to more party members by simply scaling your party more, has always existed. All the way back to Diablo 2.

I don't really mind this relative to how it affects my gameplay. I will basically never group up, so the game being balanced around single player just makes sense for me. And that is probably 95-99% of the playerbase.

Where it can get bad is when the Empyreon-type groups start spamming items into the economy. And that certainly does have an impact on the game. But there's basically nothing you can do about it.

You're never going to get this genre to be multiplayer-dominant, or dependent. There's just no way this playerbase wants to search for and join groups as a predominant way to play - not early, mid, late, or ultra late game.

I think the conversation is okay to have, there's probably tweaks here or there that can help one way or another. But gating content to groups is asking for serious trouble without completely changing genres.

Well, I'm not asking for more multiplayer content. I just question what this game tries to be. The low drop rates of orbs like divines and many strong uniques and the RNG crafting suggests, that this game is designed to be played with trade in mind - which is more of an MMORPG mechanic in my opinion. And if this game wants to be more of a single-player experience, it should definitely make it possible for any player to get the stuff he needs to create a build. All these "250 divine"-builds are just not accessable to players who play maybe 10-20 hours per week. They can only play the standard builds, that do not cost more then 1 divine. And a game that promotes so much build variety should make it more accessable in my opinion. Yes, trade may not be as attractive anymore thanks to inflation and since players could get everything themselves with a certain (and realistic) amount of grinding, but it would certtainly enhance the gameplay experience, when I can find/craft my own stuff, instead of relying on other peoples loot luck.

But like I said, that's just my opinion.

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Jabletron#5466 wrote:

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AceNightfire#0980 wrote:

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Jabletron#5466 wrote:

ARPGs have almost never been balanced around multiplayer. The ability to out-scale the buffs to enemies due to more party members by simply scaling your party more, has always existed. All the way back to Diablo 2.

I don't really mind this relative to how it affects my gameplay. I will basically never group up, so the game being balanced around single player just makes sense for me. And that is probably 95-99% of the playerbase.

Where it can get bad is when the Empyreon-type groups start spamming items into the economy. And that certainly does have an impact on the game. But there's basically nothing you can do about it.

You're never going to get this genre to be multiplayer-dominant, or dependent. There's just no way this playerbase wants to search for and join groups as a predominant way to play - not early, mid, late, or ultra late game.

I think the conversation is okay to have, there's probably tweaks here or there that can help one way or another. But gating content to groups is asking for serious trouble without completely changing genres.

Well, I'm not asking for more multiplayer content. I just question what this game tries to be. The low drop rates of orbs like divines and many strong uniques and the RNG crafting suggests, that this game is designed to be played with trade in mind - which is more of an MMORPG mechanic in my opinion. And if this game wants to be more of a single-player experience, it should definitely make it possible for any player to get the stuff he needs to create a build. All these "250 divine"-builds are just not accessable to players who play maybe 10-20 hours per week. They can only play the standard builds, that do not cost more then 1 divine. And a game that promotes so much build variety should make it more accessable in my opinion. Yes, trade may not be as attractive anymore thanks to inflation and since players could get everything themselves with a certain (and realistic) amount of grinding, but it would certtainly enhance the gameplay experience, when I can find/craft my own stuff, instead of relying on other peoples loot luck.

But like I said, that's just my opinion.

bro i agree with basically everything you're saying. the game is mega scuffed in regards to solo crafting. that's a fundamental flaw in the game. the entire design of poe2 loot and crafting is bad. i cannot agree with you more with what you're saying there.

i just don't think it's a multiplayer verse singleplayer issue. poe1 grants us so many ways to craft without needing to worry about party loot. even if you have to trade for a base, or exchange some currency, or farm a mechanic, it's all available for just you. i guess that was where i was coming from.