State of the Beta

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While there are still occasional crashes, most of the critical ones have now been dealt with.

Yeah, those not so critical crashes made me die twice in hardcore. I guess i wait for the next wipe.

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defektiv wrote:

I lul at the market stress. If you did more playing the game and less trading and trying to make a market out of it, you wouldn't need to stress about the value of things and who controls what. I'll never understand why, in a game about grinding by killing things for loot to help you progress, that some people want to skip that and flip items to get better gear and more currency. People who turn these games into capitalist simulators are the reason why we have really useful crafting components that are so rare you can't even effectively use them for their intended purpose. It's bad enough trading has become so pervasive that the public grouping system is useless and global is like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a live infomercial that never ends.

You're playing a freaking game. Trade less, play more.

Couldn't agree more. "Capitalist simulators"...lol, yep. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that isn't the Primary purpose of this particular game.

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Warrax wrote:

<Removed by support>

While I don't have a strong opinion either way about having new mods, and I can understand why some people would, I agree with what you say about the entitled attitude we see here in these threads.

People would do well to remember that PoE is a free to play game, no strings attached. Does that mean that you can't complain about anything? Of course not, in fact GGG welcomes your feedback. It's just the salty attitude that this 'feedback' (I'm being generous by even labelling some of the trash-talking here as constituting feedback) comes with which is a problem for me.

GGG have made an amazing game which we all seem to love, and perhaps that is why there are so many impassioned responses here. But just keep some things in mind people: Not only is this a truly great game, but it's continuously getting better. Trust the devs, they have done things in the past which upset people, sure, but it's impossible to make everyone happy at all times. The game has only been moving in the right direction since I've been playing (open beta), and changes come pretty fast, which keeps things fresh and keeps the metagame dynamic.

When giving genuine feedback, take a few breaths before you type, then calmly and concisely say what you would like to say, giving substantiations for your claims. I'm sure GGG and the community at large would appreciate this very much.

As for the extended beta - I don't care if it takes twice as long as was originally anticipated, as long as we get a polished product to play in the end. This is certainly the lesser evil when compared to a premature release imo. We still have PoE to play, the only thing that's actually changed is the KNOWLEDGE that a beta is being released. If we didn't know, people wouldn't be complaining that they can't play it sooner. On that note, yes, GGG are creating hype for a beta, despite it's delay. And? Why is this a problem? Marketing is everywhere you look every day, why can't GGG indulge in some themselves? I, for one, love the hype, it gets my mouth wet with every new article posted.

Do your thing GGG, some might be cynical but the rest of us trust you. You'll nail it like you always do.

I'm clearly a GGG fanboy :P

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SaiyanZ wrote:

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Miská wrote:

I think all of you standard people that fight so hard to retain what you got, should bundle you strenght with others like myself to make standard a place where people want to be.

I enjoy leagues, races. I still would like a permanent home aswell someday. Sadly current standard has absolutely nothing to offer for me and many others. They would do good to find a way to refresh the economy without destroying what people build up.

What does standard not offer you vs the leagues apart from racing?

What benefit is a fresh economy?

I think a fresh economy only makes people feel as though they're part of something because they can trade trash equipment. In the end though you're trading trash for trash in leagues vs what you can get in Standard for the same currency. More trades does not equal better economy. Value derived from the economy is important too and items for sale in standard have more intrinsic value because of items having better average rolls vs a fresh economy.

In my experience the biggest difference is that the standard economy is hugely end-game focused.

In challenge leagues, especially HC ones I imagine (only play HC these days), you can amass wealth by selling a lot of good leveling items for amounts which are not insignificant. Additionally, end game items are worth less as far as exalt are concerned because people don't have countless orbs yet in challenge leagues to spend. In standard league it's an absolute mission to sell anything which isn't viable in the end game. Combine this with PoE's rather brutal RNG and you could play for many hours without finding something that's even worth taking the time to sell.

Also, because new economies aren't flooded with items immediately, they don't need to be as good as their standard counterparts to be sellable. This means that the value differential between really good end-game items (like shavs) and mediocre end-game items isn't nearly as big as it is in permanent leagues, standard in particular (hardcore is quite different, it's a real seller's market but there aren't that many potential 'customers'). I also disagree that more trades does not mean a better economy. When 99.9% of what you find is vendor trash, instead of 97% or whatever, you're banking on finding something big and valuable to get you to that big end game item purchase. In challenge leagues you can never find a top tier unique or rare and find yourself in a position where you can buy something decent within a few weeks of more or less casual play.

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Warrax wrote:

<Removed by support>

Mmm... let me guess, in your "picture" just because someone gives negative feedbacks about introducing (certain) new top tier mods, maybe because he's married, has thirty years, not enough time to spend playing, and yet loving this game and has spent last two years collecting step by step some mirrored items, or maybe because thinks there is no need at all of higher tiers in order to do more dps and kills uber atziri in 12.5 sec instead of 13.8, or even because he remember GGG said that one of their development principle was to not waste the player efforts, so he's a entitled whiny kid who does not even deserve to be heard?
Such a mature thought!

Uh, and sorry for my bad english, you know, I'm a poor child...

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SaiyanZ wrote:

Something decent or 'end game' in the leagues is still going to be below par vs the huge amount of items already available in standard. It is only perceived to be a good item because of the low supply in the leagues. The end game item you want might not even be available or for sale in the league because it is too rare. So after all that trading in the leagues you end up with an average set of gear. It only feels worth it because everyone else has average gear.

It seems like a lot of people willingly choose to be weaker as long as everyone else is also at their level and weak. Compared to the option of building a stronger character but having to be around other stronger guys. i.e league vs standard.

As you say, a decent item is seen like a nice reward in the leagues, while on standard it's vendor trash. However, I think people choose to feel rewarded more often and weaker than feel rewarded once every 3 months and stronger.

Took me a while to understand why I cannot play on standard. I've figured it out, I guess: everyone loves to be rewarded, and I do not feel rewarded in standard. Unique item drops, I see the skin, know what it is, not even pick it up - that does not feel right.

And about this "vendor trash" thing, I would love to see plans to "dismantle" those unwanted uniques, or to use them in recipes, like X+Y+random unique = something nice, no idea, the devs showed us they're awesome and I really expect a great idea here.

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SaiyanZ wrote:

It seems like a lot of people willingly choose to be weaker as long as everyone else is also at their level and weak. Compared to the option of building a stronger character but having to be around other stronger guys. i.e league vs standard.

I think you've centered the point.

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Something decent or 'end game' in the leagues is still going to be below par vs the huge amount of items already available in standard. It is only perceived to be a good item because of the low supply in the leagues. The end game item you want might not even be available or for sale in the league because it is too rare. So after all that trading in the leagues you end up with an average set of gear. It only feels worth it because everyone else has average gear.

It seems like a lot of people willingly choose to be weaker as long as everyone else is also at their level and weak. Compared to the option of building a stronger character but having to be around other stronger guys. i.e league vs standard.

There is definitely powerful gear to be bought in temp leagues. In bloodlines, for example, there was a wand with 5T1 attack stats and master crafted crit chance. There are more than enough top tier uniques for sale as well. People are even doing uber atziri in the HC challenge leagues. There are simply enough people playing for these items to be available pretty quickly.

I also think that an item's strength is by definition a relative concept in poe. The loath bane ambusher in standard would be trash if there was a dagger with 1000 pdps. As long as your gear is strong enough to faceroll 77/78 maps the only thing that makes it 'strong' or not is what the gear around it looks like. The standard for gear strength in standard is higher than any other league, for obvious reasons. This, for me, is the exact problem. The economy becomes very end-game focused and everything else seems like trash in comparison. As far as "intrinsic value" is concerned, I don't believe that there is such a thing. If your gear can let you farm in the endgame (this is the extent to which I'll concede the point of intrinsic value for now) the only measure of a piece of gear's strength is how it fairs in comparison to other end game gear.

That's just my opinion. Anyway, I planned standard exclusively for about 12-18 months and had a good ol' time, but when I tried a HC challenge league I'll just say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the fact that I could properly participate in the economy. (I should also note that I mirrored an item in standard, so I wasn't exactly uber-casual, I still felt the economy was a bit broken though).

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Miská wrote:

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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As far as new weapon mod tiers, maybe GGG feels it's an opportunity for a bit of a reset after all of these years. To give the dogs a new car to chase. Rejuvenation!

I will never stop making new characters and getting more gear, unless they start putting out new tiers of mods for the sake of it and undermining the work Ive already put in, thats going to stop me putting any more time and effort into this game and make me walk away from Poe for good.

Maybe you will quit, maybe this is a step to get thousands others to be active in perm leagues that despise mirrored gear for what they are. A 1 time crafted item that will pay you forever without any effort required till the end of times. I can't understand how you miss how wrong that is in a game.

Dammit! On the current schedule I'll miss the release! Oh well, I'll have something to look forward to even after holiday.

There are some great posts in this thread! :)

I also think that adding higher tier mods might not be such a great idea. Many reasons have been given in earlier posts.
I believe I've heard Brad from Giantbomb say on their bombcast that with the Destiny expansions eventually all items become obsolete and he doesn't feel inclined to chase for them anymore. (I think it was Brad who said that, not entirely sure. Correct me if I'm wrong please)
Just something to keep in mind. Some comments may be extremely harsh but there is some truth in them.
And unless I missed something, I think they never explicitly said they would introduce higher mods. just

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New top tier mods

. Which can mean new mods added to the current top tier (to me this seems most likely given all the backlash) or an entirely new tier that is clearly better than the existing top tier. In case of the latter they would be very careful to not mess things up.

Also, did anyone really expect all this to be tested and fixed in just 6 weeks?
GGG even said themselves they expected people to break the game in ways they didn't imagine before. 6 to 8 weeks was their original schedule. They warned us beforehand it would probably change. There's nothing to be surprised about. I'm sure they expected to exceed their expectations.

All in all, this is a very ambitious patch. Kudos to GGG for undertaking it!
I look very much forward to the release!
Please don't rush it. The current version of POE is still amazing. Don't break it by releasing prematurely.
Good luck GGG!