Why won't any of my other friends try Path of Exile? ఠ_ఠ

If you have to convince someone that you're having fun, maybe you're not.

"

PsionicKitten wrote:

"

StDrakeX wrote:

What is your elevator pitch to get your friends to try Path of Exile?

"It's the spiritual successor of Diablo II. It's what Diablo III should have been.

... and it's 100% free, so if you want to try it doesn't cost anything."

^ Pretty much this ... Does it work? Yeah, once. PoE is just not attractive for most new players. It just isn't and that is PoE's one ugly truth at the moment.

A scenario:

Friend: "Hi, what are you playing?"
Me: "Path of Exile"
Friend: "What's that? looks a bit like Diablo."
Me: "Many people actually say that this is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2" ...
Friend: "Oh, interesting. What can you do?
Me: "Now there's this awesome gargantuan skill tree"
'Shows Skilldrasil' ...
Friend: "Sh!t, that's a big skill tree. Doesn't seem like you've gotten very far?"
Me: "Oh, you'll actually never fill out the whole tree. You have to choose."
Friend: "Hmmm.. What can the other classes do?"
Me: "Every class can do the same, so you have lots of possibilities"
Friend: "So all classes are exactly the same?"
Me: "No, there are some small stat differences ..." 'Shows stats on Wiki' "... And all classes start in different places."
Friend: "But it's basically exactly the same, still."

And so on and so forth ... This is how most, except that one friend, reacted to PoE. Try and imagine yourself what happens when they discover desync. They're immediately gone. (But Lockstep is hopefully gonna change that. In my case at least, as I have good connection). The thing is, they see a bad version of Diablo 3. PoE requires experience to enjoy (and newcomers, sadly, don't have that). Why would someone leave Diablo 3 for something that's seemingly worse.

The game just lacks that immediate "wow" factor, when someone looks at it (no, explosion don't do it. They want to see something unusual, like 'dynamic environments'. Breakable walls and such, here and there). From a newcomer it just looks like a big, ugly mess that moves far too fast. This is actually kinda ironic as they also hate how slow progress goes. GGG just doesn't hit that softspot where the action happens in a timely manner, but you still progress, in ALL ways, at a pretty noticeably rate. They want dramatic events, of course they do, but they also want the time to cherish it. Slow progress is very hard to make up for in a game that doesn't quite have a lot of constant, engaging story.

"

XSyntheticX wrote:

I have tried many times to get some of my good friends I currently raid in WoW with to play, some have ARPG experience (D2, Baldur's Gate, and D3), and it never goes well. They either won't give the game a shot at all (claiming the animations and "white block" zone transitions to make the game feel "cheap"), or they do and quickly get overwhelmed by the complexity of everything and quit before cruel. The ones that make it to merciless get discouraged they can't play a build they find interesting due to extremely poor self found drop rates, and the ridiculous market value on some build defining uniques. In short they don't want to play a build they genuinely do not like for months (or possibly a year), just to farm enough currency to trade for their goal build. out of the 20 members of our core raid I am the only person who plays regularly. Pretty much this game is very, very niche.

PoE has a lot of issues (which is to be expected as it is the startup project of an indie company), but GGG are learning from their mistakes, which, by it's current representation, The Awakening clearly shows ... Right now, PoE atttracts mainly the dedicated players. The game needs to be streamlined 'interpret the word very carefully' to attract new players. It doesn't matter too much to dedicated players, they will play anyway.

GGG just have to ask themselves the question: "Is this Path of Exile" whenever they make changes, and be very thoughtful about their answer ...

I have tried many times to get some of my good friends I currently raid in WoW with to play, some have ARPG experience (D2, Baldur's Gate, and D3), and it never goes well. They either won't give the game a shot at all (claiming the animations and "white block" zone transitions to make the game feel "cheap"), or they do and quickly get overwhelmed by the complexity of everything and quit before cruel. The ones that make it to merciless get discouraged they can't play a build they find interesting due to extremely poor self found drop rates, and the ridiculous market value on some build defining uniques. In short they don't want to play a build they genuinely do not like for months (or possibly a year), just to farm enough currency to trade for their goal build. out of the 20 members of our core raid I am the only person who plays regularly. Pretty much this game is very, very niche.

"

robotamen wrote:

This game is complex, hard and deep. Not everybody is looking for this in a game.

I dont want to be rude, but this game is mature in mechanics, others like D3 are made for +8.

I barely heard that people left POE for the reason that the game is too complex. ^^

edit: hehe right above me is one saying that

Dunno^^

"

Spysong192 wrote:

"

robotamen wrote:

This game is complex, hard and deep. Not everybody is looking for this in a game.

I dont want to be rude, but this game is mature in mechanics, others like D3 are made for +8.

I barely heard that people left POE for the reason that the game is too complex. ^^

edit: hehe right above me is one saying that

Dunno^^

They don't leave it because it's too complex, but it's easily one of the reasons they never try it ...

EDIT: GGG needs to streamline it for new players, and that means actively limiting information for newcomers. Experienced players will hate it, but it'll be heaven for many newcomers. If you've played Civ 5, you probably know that you can only see part of the map in the start of the game. My suggestion would be to make an option (on by default) that does something like this, and slowly reveals more of the skill tree as you move further out.

Here's a theory: They might have tried D3 and still have a bad taste in their mouths and aren't ready to try another ARPG.

Just a thought.

"

"

PsionicKitten wrote:

"

StDrakeX wrote:

What is your elevator pitch to get your friends to try Path of Exile?

"It's the spiritual successor of Diablo II. It's what Diablo III should have been.

... and it's 100% free, so if you want to try it doesn't cost anything."

^ Pretty much this ... Does it work? Yeah, once. PoE is just not attractive for most new players. It just isn't and that is PoE's one ugly truth at the moment.

A scenario:

Friend: "Hi, what are you playing?"
Me: "Path of Exile"
Friend: "What's that? looks a bit like Diablo."
Me: "Many people actually say that this is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2" ...
Friend: "Oh, interesting. What can you do?
Me: "Now there's this awesome gargantuan skill tree"
'Shows Skilldrasil' ...
Friend: "Sh!t, that's a big skill tree. Doesn't seem like you've gotten very far?"
Me: "Oh, you'll actually never fill out the whole tree. You have to choose."
Friend: "Hmmm.. What can the other classes do?"
Me: "Every class can do the same, so you have lots of possibilities"
Friend: "So all classes are exactly the same?"
Me: "No, there are some small stat differences ..." 'Shows stats on Wiki' "... And all classes start in different places."
Friend: "But it's basically exactly the same, still."

Me: "No, the character archetypes are not the same at all. You're just not limited to a particular linearity with your skill choice. If you want to be a spell-slinging archer, go for it. Party buffing barbarian? Go for it. But you only get about 80-ish points to choose, and there's no re-map of your skill tree if you don't like it. Just have to reroll, and hope you still have some low-level skill gems to use. But hey, there's no bind on pickup, no bind on equip. There's no character binding at all - what you find you can use, and then sell. Only the RMT stuff is bound - and it's utility or cosmetic, nothing that is used in actual game play."

Friend: "80-ish skill points? I thought it capped at level 100."

Me: *scoffs* "Once you hit about level 50 you're not getting drops that help you advance further. The experience progression drops off pretty steeply too. After level 65 you're down to grinding these things called 'maps' for hours on end hoping for decent drops your re-roll can use, or currency you can use to buy advanced level gear from other people far above your main. Because you're not going to get drops you can use, and you won't want to waste your currency on the rather anemic RNG-based crafting system. And around level 80 you're bored blind by your main. So that's pretty much where you'll quit.
"After all, it's where I quit."

I have one friend that made it to level 18 or so. He made a mess spending his skill points. Its easy to make a bad character in POE when you are new. He came for the game. Not for the calculations behind it. I gave him excelent items to get him through the first parts of the game but he kept dying and stopped playing. :(

He did make several high end D3 characters and is into other RPG games.

They other friends? They think I'm a little crazy. :P

Think of things that hook YOU to play it. And formulate a build to dps-wording your friend. I suggest you start with the Shadow, so that you can get the node of convincement, and frenzy fancy wording nodes. Focus on the eloquent attribute, and a bit of Lore for bulkiness. Do not forget to fill your free to play wording flasks.

Because from the minute I started playing POE I convinced my self that it somehow made me some sort of superior being and immediately dismissed my friends as filthy casuals because they were unwilling to put up with the same levels of mindless tedium as I. Also every discussion I had with them after was really a veiled way of me talking about how great I, and to a lesser extent, the entire POE community is for playing POE. I don't have friends anymore. But hey, that's the cost of being a member of such elite and special club.