Promoting player retention and party play.

Good evening,

I'm Knytemare, and I've been an avid gamer for the greater part of twenty years. I've played nearly every MMORPG you could imagine, and I've had multiple rank 1 accounts highlighting the 0.001% player base throughout various platforms and games alike, and I can't help but notice some fundamental flaws in the way GGG tries to retain it's player base thru their league launches for some consecutive leagues now. By no means do I intend to offend GGG or the like thereof, but I would like to assist in the ways in which GGG retains their player base thru initial league launches.

What the community wants:

1. Stop interrupting movement skills; players want the ability to "outplay" mechanics and to move around freely throughout the game without feeling restricted; this does not mean remove the mechanics for slows, roots, etc. but give the majority, NOT ONLY those w/ knowledge of the game, access to a movement-restricted free playstyle; for example, revert the freeze flasks to grant an innate immunity to freeze rather than removing freeze on use; this recent flask change only created frustration and aggravation for new players. It should also be mentioned that increasing movement speed DOES NOT increase power creep, but it does allow players to move around more freely, and it generally makes the game feel better by completing the campaign that you are required to repeat over and over at a quicker pace. This is one of the most annoying things of PoE, completing the same campaign... over and over, it's monotonous. One of the MAIN reasons I quit playing in groups was because I was falling behind everyone else's speed boosted ass. Can we get normalized movement speed or a way to promote synonymous group play?

2. Consider shortening the campaign; no one wants to re-run the introduction over and over again--this is annoying, especially when creating new characters.

3. Whirlwind or cyclone is/has always been a steeple in MMORPGs; players love the ability of moving around while simultaneously dealing damage. Either revert the movement speed changes to whirlwind, or create a unique chase item that enables cyclones full potential. Personally, I would love GGG to implement SET items that are build enabling as well. PLEASE stop putting everything into end-game gems, and think more like item sets: Immortal King's set, Tal' Rasha's, etc... players absolutely love the idea of transforming a character into a "perfect" representation of what they're supposed to be be/do. The immortal kings set made you look like an actual "God-tier" Barbarian, and the Tal' Rasha's set made character look mystical. Personally, I think an introduction of weapons similar to Bul'Kathos' from D2 would be phenomenal for PoE, especially for re-igniting the player base into melee.

4. Your changes have to affect the immediate player base, not just chase items--this is stupid. When you add in items achievable only to the top 1% of players you're leaving the rest of us out. Most players don't even make it to end game content anyways, but we would love to if you could help us get there.

5. Totems & brands should not be nerfed because they require set-up to use; these abilities should do more damage than others because of their unique play style that requires the player to pause their actions and wait for a result--the same concept should apply for channeling skills.

6. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the LEAGUE mechanic should be a forward moving mechanic. No one wants to backtrack a map. No one wants to be teleported back to the beginning of where they started. Delirium had an incredible interaction with the league itself; Delirium was integrated into the game and everyone LOVED it. You walk thru a mirror, and then the next thing you know the monsters you were killing were transformed or fought beside the new monsters that spawned in as well--the implementation of cluster jewels, etc. was an incredible idea. The next league mechanic should interact with the current state of the game like delirium, rampage, etc... but PUNISH players for pushing upper limits. Encourage game play from everyone. Increase the rewards and the benefits of party play exponentially in PoE, especially experience--you'll increase retention by doing-so.

7. It's too difficult to hit lvl 100 for new players. Either increase the experience gained, especially from party play, or lower the top end experience required .

8. Make end game content only achievable w/ builds that REQUIRE supports, aura bots, etc... implement a WAY for players to more READILY heal their allies and to actually be tanks. Encourage GROUP party play. MAKE SOME THINGS IMPOSSIBLE FOR OTHER BUILDS TO GET. EVERYONE SHOULDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO AURAS or CURSES.

9. How about a new class, or a healer for a change? What about a priest or a clergy? What about an actual WITCH who is actually their for curses? LOL! LIMIT access to those abilities to others that don't really make sense.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

I hope the community hears me out and we make some decent changes to the upcoming leagues.

Sincerely,

Knytemare

Some good news and bad news regarding some of your suggestions, as someone who has been following things closely for a very long time;

Path of Exile 2's campaign is supposedly shorter, and with branching paths to increase replayability. Unfortunately it seems GGG has no other plans to shorten the existing campaign or add any alternatives to playing through it.

They are heavily against sets as it limits player choice and creativity, they prefer the best items to be randomly generated/crafted rares, with the exception of a few extremely rare and powerful chase uniques. So I don't forsee a cyclone set being a thing anytime soon. The closest thing they've done is the Forbidden flesh/flame jewels, but that is more of a requirement than a bonus as they do nothing if you only wear one.

They are extremely hostile to the idea of a player having perfect items in a temporary league, which sets essentially become. Their stance has been "maybe one or two players might create a perfect item across an entire league if they are skillful and lucky enough, and it should be a notable event that other players gawk over." Many crafting systems have been removed or nerfed to serve this end.

This also ties into your endgame items complaint, as they consider it a feature that some content is "aspirational". They don't want an average or even good player to experience the entire game and have access to every item in a temp league.

There was a time recently in the games history where it was basically "Headhunter" or nothing for chase items. And a lot of players were upset and wanted more chase goals to work towards or get excited about finding themselves. The inclusion of the uber uber bosses this patch was also to give players something to work towards once they were finished the normal atlas progression. They aren't necessary and even the rewards are kind of lackluster at the moment, it's just another prestige goal to test your character against.

That all being said, I think there is a lot that can be improved for the new/casual player experience.

Melee balance in general has been pretty controversial, particularly with the new monster affixes this patch. But it has to do with how exposed they are to dangerous mechanics, and finding ways to give them increased defenses that aren't abusable by inherently safer ranged builds. While also making sure they are appropriately challenged and don't facetank mechanics that should be dodged.

It tends to be more difficult to scale melee damage consistently throughout progression because it's heavily tied to your weapon stats. Where spell builds benefit more from passive and gear bonuses, as well as scaling exceptionally well with gem level. Hopefully steps are taken to address this disparity in the next patch or two. But PoE 2's improved gem system will also help, by reducing the friction in swapping weapons more frequently.

Totems and brands benefit from being able to stay out of dangerous mechanics while their spells do all the work, even more so than other ranged builds. At times when they had comparable damage to self-cast, they were always the go-to builds. As it allowed players to take some investment out of defenses and focus on damage.



One of PoEs common design themes is that group play should never be exponentially more rewarding than solo play. It's fundamentally a single player game with a multiplayer economy, similar to the original diablo games. There are small magic find bonuses tied to having players in your party to keep things equal. But one part of the problem with increasing rewards is that you're already decreasing the amount of investment it takes to engage with difficult and rewarding content. Every map, bench enchant, delirium orb, and scarab has an associated cost, and by partying up, you split that cost, get more loot, and clear the area quicker.

They don't want to force players to feel like they have to party to play efficiently as it creates a lot of inter-player friction. Not to mention the disparity in movement speed/skills and ability functions makes the whole experience a bit janky to begin with. (As you've experienced)

It's unlikely they plan on normalizing movement speeds as it lessens build diversity. Some builds hyper focus movement speed to farm content like the labyrinth quicker and it helps sustain a diverse economy with multiple viable farming methods. They also just released an MTX that scales with movement speed, so people would understandably be upset if it was made pointless.

They allow a support playstyle for people who like to play together, but it will never be mandatory.

Healing spells are difficult because it's already a problem making encounters challenging but fair considering the game is balanced around singleplayer. Flasks are a limited resource, and regeneration or leech takes investment. Having a dedicated healing spell makes one resource investment (mana regen) cover both. Increasing player survivability would make encounters that are balanced to be difficult for those builds essentially impossible for others, which kills build and playstyle diversity. PoE will never be a trinity style game.

They actually believe hitting 100 is too easy right now, it's supposed to be a prestige goal not unlike hitting 99 was in diablo originally. It isn't required to do anything in the game, most builds finish all of their important nodes in the late 80s to early 90s. Item scaling doesn't go above 84/86 and requirements end somewhere in the 70s.

There are supports for a curse based witch playstyle. (Occultist) And they do well with party play.