To support or not to support. That is the qustion

I have been playing PoE for about a week seriously now, and It is time for me to make decisions about this game.

1) Is your game, GGG, worthy of my financial support?

2) If so, to what degree do I do so? If, not, do I continue to play anyway?

3) Do I speak positively about your game to others?

OK. First of all, this game is superb! It is everything that D3 is not. Your leagues are wonderful, and keep folks interested in the game. The game is AWESOME. I love the way it was developed and executed. The gameplay is 5/5 stars.

Next, your freemium package is one of the best I have ever seen. Anybody can play this game without "needing" to spend money on it. The items seem to be appropriately priced. WELL DONE HERE!!!

Unfortunately, there is a deal breaker. CONSTANT disconnects. It can take several attempts to finally get into the game from my character screen. Often, after connecting, it is VERY laggy. Sometimes get I disconnected again once I get into the game or try to enter an area from the waypoint.

Today, I played in act 4, and I went through several stages early in the act. I did not find any waypoints. After a good 45 minutes, or so, of game play, I was going into the next area and, of course, disconnection.

After walking away in frustration, I attempt to play again, and I get 3 more more unable to connects in a row. Now, I have to go through the same process again, and can only hope I don't get disconnected again. Thus, I feel your game, while is certainly not unplayable, but it certainly is at least too frustrating for me to enjoy it.

So, unfortunately, connectivity is a flat minimum 1/1 star.

I do hope to continue to play the game, and if I do, I will be supportive like buy some stash tabs or something. But for me to fully support your game, I need to know that it will be stable enough to enjoy.

I do not mean to flame your game. It truly is excellent. However, since the game is freemium in nature, I thought you might like to know my opinions on the matter. It is just too unstable for me to enjoy.

Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I hope it helps you in some way to make the game even better!

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You sounds like it's a problem with the game when it's most likely something on your end.

If it was on GGG's end, your issues would be happening to everyone else too.

If you'd like to look into your connectivity issues follow this guide and make a thread in Tech Support and post the results there. :)

Your perspective as a customer is fairly put but as teksuo said, there's every chance this isn't on GGG directly. In which case, you might want to consider supporting based solely on the positive aspects. If the connectivity issues aren't on GGG, then it seems a little unfair to withhold support if you've talked the game up to the moon and back. They put the work in to make and maintain the game regardless of your connection, after all. And it really is a devastatingly fair financial model compared to many if not most other free to play games out there...to the point where if GGG even come close to more standard f2p financial practices (mystery boxes being their version of 'loot crates'), they cop a lot more flak than other companies which do it every day.

I hope you get your connectivity issues sorted. Posting an WINMTR in the technical support board can definitely help. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1377789 might be worth checking out. I've had to submit my results more than once when Australia's infamously shit internet has left me with ping in the range of 2k ms+.

Regarding support: I recommend weighing up how many hours of entertainment you've gotten out of PoE (and may yet get) and deciding how much that might be worth to you. This is still a consumer-centric approach, as opposed to considering how much the game costs to make and operate and figuring out your place in that grander scheme.

But if you don't want to support, no one's going to come knocking on your door demanding you pay that tithe. The game is free and you're well within your rights to treat it as such! If GGG fail to get a cent out of you or anyone else, that's on them for choosing a f2p model in the first place! :)

edit: DAMN YOU, Shovelcut!

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edit: DAMN YOU, Shovelcut!

The above is good advice if you’re interested in community input from folks such as myself. If you’d prefer to only discuss things with staff, you can e-mail the log to techsupport@grindinggear.com. The log is safe to post publicly and typically the community would respond faster than staff.

Up to you.

right, because its the norm for everyone to get disconnected constantly hahaha. yea nothing for you to worry about, obviously a problem with the game!! haha

I certainly understand your responses. I tried real hard not to sound critical. I was just letting you know my perspective from a consumer point of you. Thank you for the positive input. I most assuredly will check things more thoroughly on my end. If it is me, I will certainly admit it. Thank you guys again, and good job of backing up the game you love. *thumbs up*

It’s possible that it’s neither yourself nor GGG experiencing a connectivity problem.

After your traffic leaves your home network it’ll be routed through your ISP’s network, be passed on to a peering partner of theirs, maybe be transferred over to one of their peering partners, then finally reach GGG’s hosting provider. Realistically you’re probably hundreds of miles from the data centre you’re connecting to - so there’s a lot of infrastructure you’re relying on to get a smooth connection. When the server sends traffic to you, it’s routed by different companies so can take a completely different path; effectively doubling the opportunity for problems to arise.

If you do post a WinMTR log myself or another community member would be happy to take a look at it for signs of an issue anywhere between yourself and the server. If the log doesn’t show any problems, you could e-mail techsupport@grindinggear.com and they can arrange for a log going in the other direction - as well as investigating any potential server issues / inquiring if their host has connectivity issues at one of their data centers / etc. No need to go it alone. :)

Why don't you test the product first, and ask stupid questions later?