Protecting your "PRECIOUS" economy ain't working so give up and fix desync instead

"

AlbinosaurusRex wrote:

Chris said that 3.5% of ALL players cheated during that period.

He actually did specify it in reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2t07st/chris_post_a_little_less_than_35_of_players/

"

Right, that's the number of people who logged in during the period we sampled from.

That's the total number of players--it says nothing about the ratio of Steam users.

This thread gives great lols...!

For those who are spectating, I suggest putting together a 3x3 grid of rebuttals you'd expect to come from an engineer, mathematician or statistician in an argument about data, and then call 'Bingo' when you get a row completed. To start you off:
- Correlation is not causation!
- You can't infer from one sample group to another unless their characteristics are nearly identical!

(feel free to add some)

To add a bit more fuel directly to the fire though... For those who argue that better data is needed before you'll agree 'there is a problem', what's your breakpoint? I.e. if perfect data is produced that shows 20% of all players starting leave purely due to desync, would that be enough for you to want movement changes to the client? What if it were 50%? 75%? Or would you always say 'who cares, I have fun, them people leaving can just HTFU' and you're arguing about data because you know it'll never be produced?

;)

"

davidnn5 wrote:

This thread gives great lols...!

For those who are spectating, I suggest putting together a 3x3 grid of rebuttals you'd expect to come from an engineer, mathematician or statistician in an argument about data, and then call 'Bingo' when you get a row completed. To start you off:
- Correlation is not causation!
- You can't infer from one sample group to another unless their characteristics are nearly identical!

(feel free to add some)

To add a bit more fuel directly to the fire though... For those who argue that better data is needed before you'll agree 'there is a problem', what's your breakpoint? I.e. if perfect data is produced that shows 20% of all players starting leave purely due to desync, would that be enough for you to want movement changes to the client? What if it were 50%? 75%? Or would you always say 'who cares, I have fun, them people leaving can just HTFU' and you're arguing about data because you know it'll never be produced?

;)

I don't care how many people leave. As long as GGG can keep up with their quality output and not giving any inch to cheaters by giving the client more rights on anything in the game.

That's fine for you, but I don't believe the game can survive solely on players who share that attitude. If the game loses enough players to where it feels "dead," what good does protecting the in-game economy do then? Also, how long do you think they'll keep the lights on with such limited access to MTX sales? Obviously we're talking about a near-worst case scenario here, but you must understand that player population is an important factor in the health of the game--not just whether people cheat or how much.

On the other hand, I DO understand your side of it. You want a purist experience where the game isn't ruined by cheaters. You want to feel that you earned what you have, and that others should have to earn theirs legitimately as well. I actually agree with you up to this point. Some games have died because cheating got out of control. Where we disagree is that you think desync is an acceptable price to pay to keep cheating out (even though it really only prevents certain kinds).

The real reason there is so much debate in this thread is that people like myself understand that a middle ground is the only healthy outlook for the game's long-term health if they can't find a way to fix desync without giving some trust to the client. We accept that some cheating will always occur; it already does (especially map hacks) despite GGG's security measures. We don't want it out of control either, but desync does have an extremely harmful effect on the gameplay experience. Some people claim it doesn't effect them, but that isn't relevant to the rest of us that it does effect. We KNOW it drives players away.

GGG will see an enormous influx of new and returning players when they release Act 4. It's a prediction now, but will be a fact then. Why do we know this? Historical patterns and data allow us to infer what we can expect (within reason, obviously). That's the only reason we bring Steam data into it. It's the best data available. After they release Act 4, desync will still be a problem and will still be the slow-poison that drives players away. Fixing it is the best hope for player retention. That doesn't mean that more client trust is the only option, but if it is, then it's an acceptable middle ground to me (and many others).

P.S.
That uncompromising attitude you hold is actually unhealthy to the game as well.

"

AlbinosaurusRex wrote:

That's fine for you, but I don't believe the game can survive solely on players who share that attitude. If the game loses enough players to where it feels "dead," what good does protecting the in-game economy do then? Also, how long do you think they'll keep the lights on with such limited access to MTX sales? Obviously we're talking about a near-worst case scenario here, but you must understand that player population is an important factor in the health of the game--not just whether people cheat or how much.

On the other hand, I DO understand your side of it. You want a purist experience where the game isn't ruined by cheaters. You want to feel that you earned what you have, and that others should have to earn theirs legitimately as well. I actually agree with you up to this point. Some games have died because cheating got out of control. Where we disagree is that you think desync is an acceptable price to pay to keep cheating out (even though it really only prevents certain kinds).

The real reason there is so much debate in this thread is that people like myself understand that a middle ground is the only healthy outlook for the game's long-term health if they can't find a way to fix desync without giving some trust to the client. We accept that some cheating will always occur; it already does (especially map hacks) despite GGG's security measures. We don't want it out of control either, but desync does have an extremely harmful effect on the gameplay experience. Some people claim it doesn't effect them, but that isn't relevant to the rest of us that it does effect. We KNOW it drives players away.

GGG will see an enormous influx of new and returning players when they release Act 4. It's a prediction now, but will be a fact then. Why do we know this? Historical patterns and data allow us to infer what we can expect (within reason, obviously). That's the only reason we bring Steam data into it. It's the best data available. After they release Act 4, desync will still be a problem and will still be the slow-poison that drives players away. Fixing it is the best hope for player retention. That doesn't mean that more client trust is the only option, but if it is, then it's an acceptable middle ground to me (and many others).

P.S.
That uncompromising attitude you hold is actually unhealthy to the game as well.

Bolded Parts are your opinions, not facts.

This game has "survived" until now with their "No Tolerance" policy and will in the future. Worst case they need to take down servers and offer the game as standalone, with no desync at all in a singleplayers.

As long as GGGs servers are online, I don't want them to give any chance for "more" cheating, period. I have personally sufferd through many cheating infested MMOS and other online game genres that I'd rather embrace the desicion of GGG rather to see another game losing its integrety to cheaters.

Desync can be fixed by working on the netcode and gameplay too, as seen in 1.3.1 (strongbox changes). There is no need to trust the players client.

"

Vincendra wrote:

Bolded Parts are your opinions, not facts.

This game has "survived" until now with their "No Tolerance" policy and will in the future. Worst case they need to take down servers and offer the game as standalone, with no desync at all in a singleplayers.

As long as GGGs servers are online, I don't want them to give any chance for "more" cheating, period. I have personally sufferd through many cheating infested MMOS and other online game genres that I'd rather embrace the desicion of GGG rather to see another game losing its integrety to cheaters.

Desync can be fixed by working on the netcode and gameplay too, as seen in 1.3.1 (strongbox changes). There is no need to trust the players client.

There were more opinions expressed than just what you bolded, but they are based on facts, logic, and experience--the only things we can base anything on.

But you have failed to properly identify facts from opinions.

However, a smaller player base does mean more limited access to MTX sales. The game aims to be profitable, and having a healthy player base is a key component to any profitable strategy. You can't make money without customers. That's not an opinion.

If you consider shutting down the servers "surviving," I think you either misunderstand what I meant when I said it, or you have a severely flawed view of what game health is. Having to switch to single player will severely hinder their MTX sales as well as all but kill multiplayer (sure, they could enable LAN, but that's like comparing a console's split screen to an MMO). The game will be "dead" as an online ARPG.

I have stated several times already that if they can fix it without giving more client trust, that would be great. However, they have only made improvements (band-aids, really) to the situation. They have not fixed the problem. Desync has been an issue for awhile now, and fixing it around the time Act 4 releases will be a critical factor in how well the game does long-term. I hope they do the right thing--fixing desync, that is--I don't really care too much how they do it. I doubt that they will do it in a way that allows rampant cheating to ruin the game.

"

AlbinosaurusRex wrote:

There were more opinions expressed than just what you bolded, but they are based on facts, logic, and experience--the only things we can base anything on.

But you have failed to properly identify facts from opinions.

However, a smaller player base does mean more limited access to MTX sales. The game aims to be profitable, and having a healthy player base is a key component to any profitable strategy. You can't make money without customers. That's not an opinion.

If you consider shutting down the servers "surviving," I think you either misunderstand what I meant when I said it, or you have a severely flawed view of what game health is. Having to switch to single player will severely hinder their MTX sales as well as all but kill multiplayer (sure, they could enable LAN, but that's like comparing a console's split screen to an MMO). The game will be "dead" as an online ARPG.

I have stated several times already that if they can fix it without giving more client trust, that would be great. However, they have only made improvements (band-aids, really) to the situation. They have not fixed the problem. Desync has been an issue for awhile now, and fixing it around the time Act 4 releases will be a critical factor in how well the game does long-term. I hope they do the right thing--fixing desync, that is--I don't really care too much how they do it. I doubt that they will do it in a way that allows rampant cheating to ruin the game.

Let me rephrase:

I'd rather see the game "dead" compared to "alive but infected and overrun by cheaters". That means complete loss to the access to POE forever for me over giving cheaters any leeway.

That's simply unrealistic, and would be a completely terrible attitude for GGG to get behind. Thankfully, they are smarter than that. If things get bad enough, I trust they'll do the right thing in trying to fix it.

"

AlbinosaurusRex wrote:

1st of all, how do you know what portion of the game are Steam users? You don't, so don't give me that lame argument.

I know because I follow the news on the front page and steamcharts :) On release, peak player concurrency was around 70k, half of that was on Steam, so 50:50 ratio. When 1.2.0 hit, peak concurrency was 154k or so, half of that was on non-Garena servers, so around 77k, and steam charts peaked at 25k, so 70:30 ratio.

"

AlbinosaurusRex wrote:

2nd, and more important, you misunderstood what I said with the bolded part. The ratio of players on Steam that leave the game is near certainly the same ratio of non-Steam users that leave. It's simple averages and probability--how statistics work out. Maybe if there was some reason Steam didn't work with the game, you could make a case for fewer Steam players, but there isn't one.

Just an example:

If the game has 50,000 active players and it's split 50:50, then using the Steam data to watch 12,000 players leave over a year means you can assume that roughly 12,000 non-Steam users probably did too.

If the game is more like 70:30 as you assert (with no proof), that means you have 35k:15k. If you see 12,000 Steam users leave, that's even worse, because by ratio that means 28,000 non-Steam users left. You've lost 80% of your players.

That's not how stats work. As you see from the numbers above, Steam players are more likely to leave the game than non-Steam players, else the ratio wouldn't have moved towards the non-Steam crowd. This means, as I stated before, that the non-Steam crowd isn't representative of the whole player base, thus you can't assume non-Steam players are leaving the game at the same rate as Steam players. You can't out-stat me bro, don't embarass yourself :P