No more support...

I don't think fresh leagues have enough players to populate a segregated SC runnng with a new economy one. Even if its done at the end of a 1M/3M league it will be quite pointless seeing new items eventually gets injected to permanent leagues.

I do understand however the frustration of having to start every single new one from scratch. But a new economy is always better for me to acquire hard to find items compared to permanent leagues atm. It isn't hard to.level up qiickly anyway just repetitively boring at times. Get over that hump and its all good. Maybe when the game is finally finished and ready to get rid cruel stage?

Oh no you're holding a supporter pack hostage what shall we do.

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Maswasnos wrote:

People still play standard because that's where all the godly gear is

Oh, so thats why I play standart all this time, thought I was playing it bcause I find it dumb to start over again every 3 months with no characters to play, with no items and once you got your character to level you want him to be and equipped him to start enjoy playing and then boom! a new league started go play there now, from the beginning, again. So its just all about godly gear standart league has, thats why people play there? ok

the new stuff gets added to standard after a league ends(and maybe after some small balance patch); in general.

you don't even have a point.

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Maswasnos wrote:

As it is, most of the population plays in the challenge leagues, so why not cater to them?

If the new challenges were immediately available to the permanent league, would the majority still play in the new league? If not, does that mean GGG should cater to the permanent league then?

The answer, from a customer satisfaction standpoint, does not lie in favoring one group over another.

The problem with giving permanent leagues immediate access to the challenges is two fold.

First, it does take away some incentive for players to join the new leagues. Let's look at that from another perspective. Let's say the new content was first available only in hardcore challenge league (to give people incentive to play HC), then three months later was available in SC challenge league, then three months later in SC/HC permanent leagues. All of that would be done in the name of incentive. Trying to get customers to do something they really don't want to do is never a good business model. The only time you want to do that as a company is when one way of doing things isn't profitable and the other way definitely is profitable.

Second, and more germane to the issue, imo, is balance. The new content is often imbalanced - sometimes in the favor of the character, and sometimes against the character. Permanent league characters could turn minor exploits into major ones very quickly. Permanent HC characters would be very upset if they lost their characters due to GGG imbalances.

With the fresh start a new league requires, GGG can see how new things affect the game across the whole spectrum, and not just map ready characters.

That said, I think the OP has a strong case to consider - especially if 30% of GGG's player base stays in standard even during the challenge leagues.

What I would suggest instead, is that there should be a one month delay, and then have the new challenge league content available to the permanent leagues - with the same drop rates.

In one month, most of the players that talk about quick and easy leveling will already be in their mid to late 80s in level. The economy will no longer be new. There won't be a lot of people working on low and mid level characters.

Challenges that do not relate to new content (touch X number of existing shrines, kill X existing bosses, find X existing items etc) would not be available to the permanent leagues. Challenges that were completely new (Talisman for example) would be available, but the permanent league characters would not be eligible for any of the competitive challenge prizes.

The people that like new leagues and economies would get what they want. The people who despise new leagues like vomit flavored bubble gum would wait a little bit longer and then get what they want.

There are players who do not like anything about the basic concepts of new economies and starting from scratch. I am one of them. If PoE did not have the permanent leagues, I would certainly not be playing for four years+ and I would likely not have stayed much past closed beta.

I really like new content. Whether it is major stuff, like an expansion, or minor stuff like enriching the existing landscape or adding eerie little sound effects. GGG has done a great job of adding in new stuff to the game, and my next supporter pack will be done so that they continue to have the funding necessary to add more new content.

My professional business opinion, and feedback for GGG would be this:

Look at the numbers.

Separate the supporter accounts that primarily play permanent leagues and compare them with the supporter accounts that rarely play on the permanent leagues. Now look at when each group purchases new supporter packs. If, GGG sees that the permanent league players are buying expansion packs later, then GGG might be missing out a percentage of the sales that are based on enthusiasm for new content.

What I would really be looking for, and hoping I didn't find, was that the permanent league players were both buying lower tier supporter packs and delaying buying them by a significant amount (>2-3 weeks more than challenge league players). To me, that would be a red flag that I was missing a good chunk of business by not capitalizing on permanent league player enthusiasm.

If the buying patterns of supporter packs are similar in timing and tier, than GGG may not be missing anything sales wise.

GGG makes a great game. Some people like strawberry, some like chocolate, some like both.

I don't want to make a bad analogy, but imagine if people who wanted to see the new Star Wars movie this December had to wait until March 2016 for the IMAX 3D version?

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kreca73 wrote:

the new stuff gets added to standard after a league ends(and maybe after some small balance patch); in general.

you don't even have a point.

Think of it this way:

Why did GGG waste precious development time, airfare, hotel and other costs to make their recent press junket trip?

Why do movies put so much effort into hyping opening weekend sales?

Why are companies willing to give away billions of dollars in lost margin (ROI) to get customers to shop at their store FIRST on Black Friday?

When driven by heavy promotional exposure, customer enthusiasm and anticipation drive much greater sales at the initial release than they would with staggered sales releases.

Countless companies don't spend billions of dollars driving the hype train because they don't know what they are doing. The last couple of years, a few executives thought they were 'smarter' than the collective business wisdom of the herd and tried to adjust the arrival time of the hype train by a few hours. Their "tinkering" with the timing of the hype train has resulted in a loss of approximately 600 billion dollars.

Timing is everything. Part of the expected cost and perceived value of a new item lies in its "newness". A three month old product has lost some of its sheen and is not as exciting or valuable as a new product is. When we are talking about a free to play game, the customer is getting the same end product whether they pay or not. The choice to support or not depends largely on the customer's emotional connection with the game.

Whether you, or I, or a third party feels connected or not, doesn't mean a fourth party will feel that way. Continuing to capture that emotional connection and delivering a fun and evolving game will remain as the primary determinant of success for GGG as long as it relies on the customer supported free to play model.

Look at their support staffing. Do they need that many people for adequate support? No, not really. Do they need that many people to have amazing support? Yes, they do. Is amazing support part of an positive emotional connection that is key to a successful customer supported model? Yes, it is.

On the converse, it makes sense logically to support a free to play game that you want to see continue to develop. Unfortunately, the majority of spending on non essential products that are of comparable perceived value is done so based off of emotional reasons. You may dispute that if you wish, but anyone with experience and knowledge of the field will consider it an established fact with only minor quibbling over the exact percentage.

The OP has a very strong point. That doesn't mean following a strong point is the correct decision.

The feasibility of the idea is questionable. The overall impact of such a change may not be favorable for GGG's design philosophy of continually updating the game with new leagues and new content at the same time.


Historically speaking, ~75% of dissatisfied customers silently walk away.

The fact that the OP made such a post, when they could have just silently walked away from the game without spending another dime, is a good sign for GGG.

It means the OP still has some trust and faith in GGG. (it's a complicated customer sentiment in what that "faith" entails and the customer's expectations, so I won't belabor that here).

i see your point and from that context its a valid one but i consider it a 1st world problem thinggie.
- when players choose to play a league, they implicitly agree with its ups and downs, with its pros and cons(ex: fresh leagues start from 0, standard league has legacies and billionaires)
- what if players would've started bitching about how they want tempest in the warbands challenge league?. based on your point, they'd be right to ask/demand such a thing because they supported ... everything.

to put it bluntly, be responsible for the choices you make.

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kreca73 wrote:

i see your point and from that context its a valid one but i consider it a 1st world problem thinggie.
- when players choose to play a league, they implicitly agree with its ups and downs, with its pros and cons(ex: fresh leagues start from 0, standard league has legacies and billionaires)
- what if players would've started bitching about how they want tempest in the warbands challenge league?. based on your point, they'd be right to ask/demand such a thing because they supported ... everything.

to put it bluntly, be responsible for the choices you make.

I agree with you on this. We knew what to expect coming into the various leagues.
GGG didn't change anything from what they originally said they would do with permanent and challenge leagues. They have kept their side of the bargain, which was to not wipe the standard league - which is why I am still playing. If I don't like a challenge league, I can work on my standard characters.

I have been pleasantly surprised in that most of the challenge leagues so far have been worth playing. The one month leagues are a killer when it takes me almost a month to get to mapping level, but they aren't the meat and potatoes of new content either.

All in all, I'm fairly happy with how GGG has handled the leagues. I do hope some of the Talisman stuff is available in std, as R/L commitments will only leave me with about 4 days to play in that league.

... still waiting for (a) permanent league(s) that isn't/aren't a dumping ground(s) for temp leagues. And the hc pendant doesn't vomit their dead bodies into the std. version. No (negative) influence from outside of the leagues whatsoever. Plain and simple.

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kcstar wrote:

... still waiting for (a) permanent league(s) that isn't/aren't a dumping ground(s) for temp leagues. And the hc pendant doesn't vomit their dead bodies into the std. version. No (negative) influence from outside of the leagues whatsoever. Plain and simple.

You'd end up with the same result.... It would just take longer. I don't even think hc characters dying contributes much to the saturation considering the vast majority of hc players just abandon their characters after they die.