And so it begins! (the slippery slope)

Op reminded me of this:



Tho i do not agree on his points :)

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MaxTheLimit wrote:

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whitified wrote:

A bit of context here, i don't craft, i dont even map. Heck, i dont even PLAY PoE!

While I admire the dedication of following a game you don't actually play, don't you think that NOT playing means you lack the context to form a useful / informed opinion?

Whilst you have many points let's just pick on this one for a bit.

Don't fall down this path. One does not need to be a so-called "expert" on a topic to have a constructive, even valid opinion on it.

Whilst I generally agree that playing the game is going to grant you a greater understanding than simply reading posts and watching videos, playing the game isn't an absolute to providing feedback.

If it was then we'd never be able to make feedback before a game comes out (which we do).

Not to mention that if we had to be an expert on the things with critique then every critic out there would be simply "unqualified" to speak on a subject, most having never made a movie, written a book or developed a game.

I have not seen any solid evidence of GGG acting on perverse incentives. I think you should better present whatever evidence there is before diving into baseless speculation.

@whitified

Tier 1 affix change will mostly hurt top-end traders and, I would argue, they are not the target audience for this game, so your point about "alienating target audience" seems weak IMO. This game seems to be balanced around temp leagues and T1 change will impact them even less than standart. I believe, the target audience for PoE are your average monster killers, racers, lore buffs and build makers, and 2.0 actually brings a lot of new and exiting things (which you seem to omit in your OP) for those players. Even the controversial Reduced Mana change is sorta ok, since now people will have to work around that, people will have to get creative and that's a good thing.

Also you might wanna expand on why "power creep is BAD" in f2p game where nothing is gated behind a paywall. All T1 affix change does is give a chance (small chance, but still) for people to drop/craft better stuff and slightly devalues the current top tier gear (which, again, makes it easier for your average player to trade for such gear).

The planned number of acts is 9 or 10, if I recall correctly, so, naturally, there will be new content (items, gems etc.) and, most likely, this content will be at least slightly more powerful than previous stuff. Level of higher difficulty zones will go up as well, so you'll need better tools for the job.

Overall, I think you are trying too hard to fit current PoE state in your pattern and thus ignore some relevant facts and exaggerate too much. Which is not something one would expect from a competent economist (or maybe it is, I'm not so sure about that one).

Well, there are companies who are both very succesful and didn't sell their ideals, like Valve. Yes, they're trying to make profit and they've every right to do so, but at no point did i feel like they stopped making great games or stopped to care about their fans. Yes, they did some mistakes with some of their decisions, but they always corrected them or made up for them. And they also started as a small studio back in die 90s, now they're one of the biggest fishs in the sea.

Besides, i don't see how GGG is driving away from their core audiency at all, from all i see so far all they do is to improve their game even more towards their fans. I'd like to see an example of where this ain't true, if you don't mind.

There is so many things wrong with posts like this one, but the fact someone not even playing the game AT ALL follows what's going on here and make a wall of text on the official forum is probably the worst. I can appreciate your effort, but you have no idea of what you're talking about.

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StDrakeX wrote:

he does raise some valid points, if you managed to get past the first sentence.

Sorry but no, he doesn't.

1. I just downloaded Garena 3 days ago. Singapore is in my regional drop down options on regional options, so maybe your garena is all jacked up. I'd suggest uninstall/reinstall garena and see what happens.

2. Many companies have to do business with overseas companies to distribute their products. I.E. some foreign governments will not let you do business in their country unless a local company is going to benefit. I do not know if this impacted the deal with Garena, but I suspect it did. Very large companies might be able to just pay countries off to keep the autonomy of their game, but it is hard for an Indy company to do that.

3. As you point out the standards of Garena and GGG are very different. Just because Garena takes a questionable action does not mean that GGG is going to do the same. I.E. it would not completely surprise me if over time Garena PoE did turn into a cesspool, but I believe GGG will remain pure.

4. So why deal with Garena? Would you rather have a weaker product or no product at all? I suspect that without Garena PoE may not have been able to gain access to many of the Garena markets. So it was a matter of going with a potentially worse exposure or no exposure. Sometimes you cannot let perfect be the enemy of good. Or in this case, something vs. nothing at all.

5. GGG its self has remained steadfast on their financial policy.

6. I do not even know what Garena is or is not doing since I do not generally play over there, but if I understand correctly people are saying Garena sells passive resets? If so this is selling power, a somewhat watered down form of power, but it is power.

6b. I've played since the games pre-launch beta. Anyone who says that infinite passive resets is not power is a bit ignorant or naive. Take a 1 week race for example, having the ability to fully spec into a cheap easy power leveling build and then seamlessly instantly reset into an end game build without taking any time to go do reset quests (which would not get you even close to a full respec anyway) or taking the time or resources to go purchase the large number of regret orbs to do this.
-I.E. you can instantly transform your build into a more powerful build without the need to play the game to do this.
-also: being able to infinitely reset your skill tree between maps based on map mods on 78 maps would be pretty strong also, probably expensive but still theoretically possible.

6c. I think it unfair for people to attack the OP's argument based on the fact that he has not played the game. Either his arguments are sound or they are not sound on their merit. Many science and physics breakthroughs came from people speculating on things they had not personally experienced, or in their time could not even properly test to verify.

7. Overall the original post does raise some fair issues, but GGG has given no indication of slipping at all on its ethical financial model. Garena is what it is, it probably will not go any further than it has also, but if it did I wouldn't be surprised it is Garena, but be thankful you have that if your in those regions or else you probably would not have anything at all.

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whitified wrote:

If, for example, back in 2012/2013 GGG were to announce that there would be higher mods than Tyrannical and Glyphic in the future, Im sure many of the supporters back then under the "no power creep" category would have thought twice before spending real $$$.

This is total speculation based on what your want your conclusion to be. I don't see how it's possible that anybody could have thought the game could continue to grow and add new content but never change available mods. I spent money in 2013. A lot of money. I wasn't around for closed beta so my first pack is the Exalted pack from Open Beta. You're delusional if you think I expected them to keep the mods the same forever and ever but still keep making the new content so I wouldn't get bored. Who really cares about new areas if you can never find better loot?

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whitified wrote:

- free-to-play, available to all
- never pay-to-win

I would support GGG some because I enjoy the game. I would support them more because I think they are good developers.

The reason I supported them so heavily (and will continue) is these two items. First one goes away, I'll support them less. Second one goes, I am done supporting.

You are so woefully off on powercreep it is ridiculous though. We have been dealing with powercreep since release and the upcoming 2.0 is major a step against it.