GGG hates standard.

"

Nenjin wrote:

GGG isn't going to say anything. They're not in the habit of apologizing for shit. They don't apologize for wrecking builds, they don't apologize for crappy server stability. The best we can hope for one day is a manifesto post where they make excuses for this many years of shit code.

why should they say anything?

its their game they can run it however they like

there really is nothing to gain by them saying anything

"

k1rage wrote:

"

Nenjin wrote:

GGG isn't going to say anything. They're not in the habit of apologizing for shit. They don't apologize for wrecking builds, they don't apologize for crappy server stability. The best we can hope for one day is a manifesto post where they make excuses for this many years of shit code.

why should they say anything?

its their game they can run it however they like

there really is nothing to gain by them saying anything

Clearly you've never run a business. Now hush, or go find some more weak memes to post.

"

Nenjin wrote:

"

k1rage wrote:

"

Nenjin wrote:

GGG isn't going to say anything. They're not in the habit of apologizing for shit. They don't apologize for wrecking builds, they don't apologize for crappy server stability. The best we can hope for one day is a manifesto post where they make excuses for this many years of shit code.

why should they say anything?

its their game they can run it however they like

there really is nothing to gain by them saying anything

Clearly you've never run a business. Now hush, or go find some more weak memes to post.

you're just bitter because GGG neglects you lol

I've been a fan of these types of games since the first Diablo and I don't think I'll ever understand the mindset of ladder/league players.

I first encountered the idea of the ladder back in the early days of D2. I was playing with a paladin and we were still in normal difficulty when he mentioned something about his other paladin who was level 95. I asked him why he created new character if he had a level 95 of the same class and he told me it was because of the new ladder. "The what now?" I thought. I'd always seen these games as being about killing monsters, finding rare items, and optimizing my gear. It never occurred to me that I was in some sort of competition with a bunch of strangers I was no way in contact with. I liked that trading was a thing and I could trade a valuable item that wasn't useful to my build for something that was or trade up/down for items I don't/do need, but it never occurred to me that the economy ever needed to be "reset". This all seemed so bizarre to me. It was like we were playing different games.

Blizzard starting adding ladder only content (runewords/uniques/cube recipes) which meant you had a three month period to ever have any of these things. This was compounded by the fact that the three months started at the beginning of the ladder season and not whenever you happened to create your character. This seemed needlessly frustrating for people who didn't care about the ladder and only wanted to get the best items. Nearly every build needed at least one ladder only item to be fully optimized and some gimmicky builds were completely dependent on them. To me it was like if your save file in a Final Fantasy game erased itself if you didn't beat it before a certain calendar date.

I remember visiting Blizzard's forums to discuss this issue once near the end of a ladder season and saw people debating this very issue. Some people were asking Blizzard to prolong the ladder because they hadn't yet fulfilled the runewords they wanted, which was understandable to me. There were also pleas to extend the ladder only content to non-ladder so this wouldn't be an issue for them any more. On the other side of the issue, you had people begging them to finally reset the ladder. This begged so many questions in my mind like "Do you really have a level 99 character of every build with full optimized gear and a stash full of zod runes?" and "why can't you just make a new character anyway?" This made even less sense in D2 than in POE because Blizzard didn't add a new gimmick every season. I liked that trading was a thing, but the idea that the economy ever needed to "cleansed" like the game was a stock market simulator that accumulated errors over time was just plain bizarre to me.

Some people lauded the alleged competitive aspects of the ladder, but the more I heard the stranger it got. I knew there was a leaderboard showing the highest level characters presumably ordered by who got to level 99 first at the very top, but I didn't know what in god's name that was supposed to prove. What if one person got their character to level 99 by the end of the first month of the ladder season and another started on the last week and got their character to 99 over night? At the time, all of the top players were suspiciously paladins and there were constantly hammerdin bots doing Baal runs. Someone responded to that by saying the people who really climb the ladder are dedicated players who put on a pot of coffee and pull an all-nighter on the game. What on earth is that supposed to prove? Why not enter a coffee drinking contest instead? At least Final Fantasy games have a game clock that let's you show everyone exactly how long it took you to get all of your characters to level 99 regardless of the calendar date. I recall another person pleading with Blizzard to "reset the ladder already" and not listen to people who want it extended for "ridiculous and contrived" reasons like getting there hands on unique items that can only be found on the ladder. I thought "Boy are we playing this game for different reasons!" The idea that rare items are just a means of climbing the ladder faster and not an end in themselves was something that never occurred to me.

I created a new league character once early on in POE and almost immediately regretted it after I realized I was cut off from my stash. This was early on before I had very much stuff accumulated, so it wasn't a huge deal, but after that I had no real interest in the leagues. The idea that people are eagerly awaiting their progress to be wiped after a three month cycle is so strange to me. With this new expansion, I noticed that my current characters were essentially barred from the new content in the way everyone is complaining. It was disappointing, but I figured I'd actually start a new character on new league for once. Legacy League seemed so neat (I don't know from personally playing it, but looking it up and watching youtube videos) that I thought surely the new league for GGG's most ambitious expansion yet would be amazing. I started fighting these harbinger guys and noticed they dropped currency fragments for new types of currency orbs. I didn't want to look up what they did because I wanted to be surprised. So I finally collect enough to see what they do:

Orb of Binding - Upgrades a normal item to a rare item with up to four linked slots
Engineer's Orb - Improves the quality of a strongbox

I looked it up and there's some other stuff too, but nothing too impressive. I cut myself off from my stash for this? I could be plowing through the old acts with a Tabula Rasa and a bunch of Elreon's jewelry, not to mention access to every skill gem in the game and a bunch of level 8 forsaken masters. It's also perfectly possible to trade on Standard. I've done it plenty of times. Why would I want to play any other way? So the junk I find early game seems more precious? Out of some abstract notion of being "better" than some other player I don't even know? I don't get it...

I like PoE, as in the actual gameplay, and builds, variety, etc. What I don't like about PoE is pretty much everything else.

I'm hoping one day they cave in and release a single player offline version of the game. Then I'd enjoy it. That probably won't happen until the servers are dead, and donations dry up.

At some point the game is going to stagnate, and long time PoE players aren't gonna keep coming back just because GGG keeps shuffling the meta, and doing another special, one off league. They had 10 acts planned for the game, and now the game has 10 acts. Now what?

Sell it to Tencent.

Add the missing 3D Arts,Polish old animations make more Map Tiers?

Fuck GGG. They are a shit developer that doesnt care about a big chunk of their playerbase. So sick of builds being completely gutted and now passives were taken from our characters. Pantheon system is so underwhelming. Worst patch for standard players ever.

Theres prolly a variety of reasons as to why they emphasize leagues.

One thing I can think of is that if you basically have one major league then the league will eventually be saturated with higher and higher level chars, having more and more eng game gear which will result in builds centering primarly around top end game high level tier equipment. Everything will be centered around min max which is - to a lesser extend - the case even in fresh leagues where everybody starts with nothing.

Actually....this is a smart move.

With leagues, the leveling and constantly mixing of new skills, testing things out and not having an over saturated market of end game equipment, you have a different focus. Basically what they want is continuously fresh economys, trading, leveling, testing of new skills, different dynamics when leveling because of varying league rules.

I dont quite understand the rage.

Its all for free and what other game gets so much new content and constant new skills and all that stuff.

It's not so much the focus on Leagues that matters (better leagues means potentially better new game mechanics coming to the permanent leagues too), it's the seeming ignoring of the permanent leagues and what is important to those playing in them, that matters.