RoS sales is a sign that millions are still searching for a better arpg playing experience. .

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anubite wrote:

It's evidence there are clueless casuals about that crave shallow instant gratification. Surprise?

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Fruz wrote:

Where does Blizzard's money come from ? Hardcore gamers ? Or from WoW ( Huge Majority of non hardcore gamers in there I'm sure ) ?

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Rhys wrote:

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Hyskoa wrote:

1: Can you define what hardcore means to GGG and how it pertains to POE?

That is... a really, really good question. Hmmm, I need to think about this.

OK. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

A game that is "hardcore" is one that "rewards investment"; this is a level of depth, and one that has multiple facets. Right now, I can think of four main aspects to it: time, knowledge, skill, and emotion.

~Investment of Time~

This is shallowest form of depth. Of hardcoreness, if that's a word? Players become invested by the sheer amount of time they have spent. They are rewarded for spending lots and lots of time playing the game. Often, their progress (whatever it is) is directly or indirectly a measure of hours played. Kill X goblins. Collect Y rocks. Accumulate Z experience points. If these tasks require "mindless grinding", then you are investing time when you complete them.

Many MMOs exploit this, of course, requiring huge amounts of time investment in order to reach (and explore) the endgame. Some people love this; some people don't. Some people are proud of their progress, and boast to friends or fellow forum-goers of their time well-spent attaining virtual glory. They're flagrantly hardcore. Others view their progress as a thinly-veiled representation of all the time they've wasted on that stupid game. And some people do both.

Path of Exile rewards time investment, as you've probably noticed. Of course it does. In fact, there are multiple ways in which it does. The most basic being is the XP/level grind. Just by looking at a character's level/XP, a savvy player can estimate the amount of time spent on it. But... even that most basic grind isn't so simple. When someone at the top of the ladder in Hardcore dies, they have to start again from scratch. Yet, the very same person who died at level 90 can come racing back to the top of the ladder (or near the top) again on a new character quite quickly. Clearly, they didn't spend the same amount of time grinding as before. There must be something more to it.

Note that RNG-based systems fall into this category, because players must invest enough time to ride out streaks of bad luck in order find good luck. The randomness simply obscures the correlation to time spent and makes it more fun.

~Investment of Knowledge~

Another way to achieve depth and make a game hardcore is reward knowledge. This where players can progress, or progress much faster than normal, by acquiring knowledge about the game and its systems. Discovering shortcuts, synergies, combos, secret levels, etc. Whereas investment of time most often yields more progress and content, investment of knowledge often results in increased speed of progress.

Another form of this is complexity. By offering up complex systems, players can invest knowledge and learn the optimal paths, the most efficient combinations of moves, etc. that may not be obvious at first glance, even if all the information is there.

In Path of Exile, we have several such systems. The most immediate is the passive skill tree, which is notoriously overwhelming at first glance. It often takes people several characters before they learn how to build effectively for endgame. But we have other, more subtle systems in place, as well. The vendor recipes are a prime example. You can generate a great deal of currency by simply knowing about the GBR 3-link recipe that yields a Chromatic Orb, and regularly checking the shops for cheap equipment. Even subtler, is knowing the best places to grind EXP during a ladder rush. By investing in knowledge, by learning about the game, you can make more efficient progress and gain wealth.

As another example, in a fighting game, you can look at the combo list, but you'll need to learn those combos off by heart if you want to become good at it. Or if you can't (or don't know to) look at the combo list, you'll be at a severe disadvantage compared someone who does know all the moves.

Of course, simply knowing what the moves are isn't nearly enough. You need to be able to actually pull them off. You need skill.

~Investment of Skill~

Some games allow - or require! - an investment of skill. Fighting games, for example, require players to learn and master a variety of moves for every character, if they want to beat the game, or beat other players. This is closely tied to investment of knowledge, but is quite distinct because it is about learning not what to do, but how to do it. This often involves acquiring the muscle-memory to perform a quick sequence of actions, but it can also involve puzzle-solving techniques.

Some puzzles are solved through knowledge, but some are solved through skill. Any puzzle that involves a random initial state will necessitate learning not the solution, but the method by which the solution is obtained. You may know how to solve Sudoku puzzles in general, but you may still struggle with a particularly difficult one. This is something of a grey area, I will admit, between knowledge and skill.

Path of Exile rewards investment of skill. Some bosses require quick reflexes, or careful usage of projectiles or curses. Any monster with energy shield requires some skill, to not let it regenerate. Monsters with reflect auras often require a far more careful playstyle, and reward players (by not killing them) who carefully manage their damage output and healing. Using granite and ruby flasks at the right times is another example.

And, of course, there are races. When players are competing with each other, skill is absolutely vital. Knowledge is, too, but skill is very important. Yes, there is randomness of drops, which are also vital, but that just means skill and knowledge are be-all and end-all. It gives those aren't the best of the best a fighting chance.

~Investment of Emotion~

So the last point I want to cover is regarding the investment of emotion. This one isn't exclusive to games; TV, movies, books, theatre, even music, they also take advantage of this. By having compelling characters and plotlines, interesting stories and worlds can draw in the audience - or the player, in the case of a game - and get them emotionally invested. This isn't necessarily hardcore, in and of itself, but it can be. Ohhhhh, it can be.

Consider Trekkies, Bronies, Whovians, all the die-hard fans of Naruto, Spiderman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, the Beatles, Justin Bieber, Halo, Call of Duty, Diablo, etc. etc. Are they not hardcore? They're totally into their respective fandoms/cultures/cults, some beyond reason, even. They are all emotionally invested, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with them over the internet.

Much more so than the others, emotional investment is its own reward. Some people like to mindless grind, to kill time. Some people love to learn about new things or master new skills. But everyone loves a good story. It's a great money-earner, too. By getting people emotionally invested in the story, it makes them want to finish the movie/book/game, and it makes them want to buy/play the (inevitable?) sequel.

So with all that in mind, how could a game be hardcore because of emotional investment? Is it even possible to NOT reward emotional investment? You might cite Mass Effect 3, but even so, most people thought that game was great up until the ending. But therein lies the answer.

Games that require emotional investment to the story are hardcore. What kind of game is that? Well, the immediate genre that springs to mind are Visual Novels. They're all about the story, the characters, the plot... literally! If you hate the story, you're not going to finish one of these games. Unless you're masochistically trying to prove something, I guess. The same goes for "movie games" such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. It isn't the tangible gameplay that makes you want to progress, is the story. If you love the story, you'll love the game and finish it. If not... you probably won't do either.

Path of Exile is not terrible hardcore about the story. It is very easy to skip virtually all the NPC dialogue, and there are no cutscenes. There is actually quite a lot of backstory and so on scattered around, if you choose to look for it. Environmental lore, optional NPC dialogue, unique and quest item flavourtext. But this is something we are not "hardcore" about.

So, that's four ways I can think of through which games can be hardcore. There may even be others. I think most hardcore games use a mixture of them, though. I know we do.

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raics wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

Where does Blizzard's money come from ? Hardcore gamers ? Or from WoW ( Huge Majority of non hardcore gamers in there I'm sure ) ?

As GGG stated themselves, time investment and immersion are also valid 'hardcore' criteria. I've seen many people extremely enthusiastic about WoW and, as most MMOs it demands a significant time investment if you want to play it as intended.

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Arrowneous wrote:

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kaarelo wrote:

why are you even here ?

 Please stop your lame trolling. Or don't you even read the Gameplay Discussion thread where we love the way GGG made PoE but are not liking the too low of crafting orb drop rates so that self-crafting (I didn't even open the Pandora's box on "crafting" vs. "gambling" debate with the RNG) is not viable without trading to amass enough quantity of crafting orbs, etc.

 Since you asked, I'm here to be the "Horton" to the millions of "Whos" that want GGG to wake up and listen to us and stop catering only to the uber-hardcore masochist arpg player. And for the record, if GGG is only interested in this audience they should make a formal announcement that this is the way they want PoE to be and tell us to stop making suggestions on the SFL because we never ever intend to add this to PoE. I would have more respect of GGG if they were candid on this topic (sad, but at least I'd know that more talk on this subject is futile).

 PoE is by far the better of the 2 arpgs for long term value for the money (yes, PoE is FTP but we all need more stash space, a pet, and some bling), replay value, and build diversity and all that and I love these features. But with several key features of this arpg significantly lacking in fun: too low of crafting orb drop rates, too few drops that come close to our character level once you get to Merciless, crafting is just RNG gambling, etc. it is through the posts we make here that informs GGG of our likes and dislikes of PoE. A great example are the strongboxes in Ambush League. A great feature and I love it. (Putting the graphics cache in a ram drive to reduce lag when opening a strongbox works very well.)

 So if we don't speak our mind then GGG is going to go along a specific development path that fails to take into consideration the wants and desires of their players. This will work out well for some players that like everything that GGG does but that's a select few and with millions of arpg players in the world that GGG could capture as fans (and thus increase their own financial success) it is vitally important that the free flow of information between the developer and the player be kept open.

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Fruz wrote:

There are many of them .... and there are like 10 times more players that don't.
Am I gonna be hardcore because I finish F VII ? ( there is some time investment involved, but clearly not enough ).
no
Am I gonna be hardcore because I get all the materia maxed and beat all the weapons and finish all the side quests ? More likely, yeah.

=> "Huge majority"

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Alea wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

Then you've become casual, there's noting wrong with it.

u didnt understand my example.

i meant someone not playing much isnt necessary someone with "low gaming" skills.

d3 is a product dedicated to a very large public, and then outragously simplified.

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raics wrote:

Yeah, and it's exactly the same here, people use premade builds without knowing why they work in the first place, they buy gear with real money skipping time investment or with orbs from farmed low content skipping the effort investment. PoE is just like any other game in that regard, not 'hardcore' or 'casual' by itself, it can be played both ways.

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LSN wrote:

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Arrowneous wrote:

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kaarelo wrote:

why are you even here ?

 Please stop your lame trolling. Or don't you even read the Gameplay Discussion thread where we love the way GGG made PoE but are not liking the too low of crafting orb drop rates so that self-crafting (I didn't even open the Pandora's box on "crafting" vs. "gambling" debate with the RNG) is not viable without trading to amass enough quantity of crafting orbs, etc.

 Since you asked, I'm here to be the "Horton" to the millions of "Whos" that want GGG to wake up and listen to us and stop catering only to the uber-hardcore masochist arpg player. And for the record, if GGG is only interested in this audience they should make a formal announcement that this is the way they want PoE to be and tell us to stop making suggestions on the SFL because we never ever intend to add this to PoE. I would have more respect of GGG if they were candid on this topic (sad, but at least I'd know that more talk on this subject is futile).

 PoE is by far the better of the 2 arpgs for long term value for the money (yes, PoE is FTP but we all need more stash space, a pet, and some bling), replay value, and build diversity and all that and I love these features. But with several key features of this arpg significantly lacking in fun: too low of crafting orb drop rates, too few drops that come close to our character level once you get to Merciless, crafting is just RNG gambling, etc. it is through the posts we make here that informs GGG of our likes and dislikes of PoE. A great example are the strongboxes in Ambush League. A great feature and I love it. (Putting the graphics cache in a ram drive to reduce lag when opening a strongbox works very well.)

 So if we don't speak our mind then GGG is going to go along a specific development path that fails to take into consideration the wants and desires of their players. This will work out well for some players that like everything that GGG does but that's a select few and with millions of arpg players in the world that GGG could capture as fans (and thus increase their own financial success) it is vitally important that the free flow of information between the developer and the player be kept open.

The question is why people like you are never going to understand that crafting vs trading can't be fixed. You can have as many orbs drop as you want. An infinite amount of orbs dropping would result in an infinite good amount of items being available for an infinite low price (=free). So you still would not craft with your infinite amount of orbs but obtain free items from trade. To any lesser extend than infinite it works exactly the same way. Trading for items will always be cheaper. And anyway this whole thing would only become a problem if exactly GGG did what you want that is increasing item/orb drops. Then we had so many good items around for trade after some time so that crafting would become completely obsolete and finding an item anyway at all impossible.


Your intelligence is the problem for not understanding this economic issue, not the game's layout of orb drops.

"

mazul wrote:

A major point you miss to consider is that there are people who feel that there is an intrinsic value to acquiring something through crafting or looting. Which means, that at the point where crafting and/or looting are sufficiently good utility-wise in comparison with items you could trade for, people will find crafting and/or looting to be a viable progression path.