Is GGGs model for PoE stunting growth and retention?
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I read the OP but not all 6 pages as I don't have the time for that.
I will say this. I am new. I played a long time go and got to like only 24 and stopped playing due to owning a business and didn't have the time. I grew up playing games that weren't so friendly. I just completed act 4 on normal last night in the Warbands league. I died a few times I believe around 10 total through my whole play through. The first time I died was in Act 4. I don't understand why things MUST be handed to people in todays world. I grew up playing D1, D2, and played a little D3 which I still think is horrible due to the lack of customization and no REAL sense of, "Wow, I did it." In PoE I got that feeling the other night when I beat Act 4 on my own with no gear given to me or any other type of items. I first read up on guides for building a decent character and I just went on from there. Once I did some reading and played I started to understand the basics of the game pretty quickly. The community has been helpful in answering my questions in chat and there would always be at least one person that would whisper me directly and explain in more detail. It really isn't that difficult to learn about the game. When someone wants to learn they will regardless of what it is in life. If you DON'T have the time to read up on a complex game and learn the complex system the game offers then that is on the player and not the developers. It doesn't even take that much time either it's just a matter of doing it and that is what people don't want to do. If people want to play PoE then learn it don't wish or blame developers to make it easier. This is why you have groups of people that "wish" they had certain things in life but don't and then you have the other group that do "have" and they aren't sitting there wishing because they are busy doing so they don't have to wish. Life is all about learning no matter what a person decides to do with their time, productive or non-productive. Keep up the good work GGG. I'm enjoying the game. Last edited by innerdam83#2618 on Jul 15, 2015, 11:50:48 PM
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Microtransaction games aren't dependent on growth to sustain their revenue.
However, I do like GGG's new lockstep mode and I think that's a step in the right direction. In my opinion, they need to focus on giving players a more tactile goal instead of just the same old resets in leagues. I feel a lot of players quit due to lack of direction or goals. The introduction to Atziri / Uber Atziri has been the biggest success in retaining people and keeping them interested, imo. IGN:Vennttorr - Level 100 Witch - 1st Witch to 100. My mirror service thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/811499 My Crit Arc build: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1090691 -- Updated Last edited by Ventor#1827 on Jul 16, 2015, 12:12:36 AM
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" I think for more than 99% of new players, normal difficulty is the last difficulty they play, regardless of the difficulty of the contents. So current normal difficulty might be fine as it takes an amount of time and knowledge to complete it. Probably the amount of knowledges acquired before completing the Normal is the key to interest new players to go further into the Cruel difficulty. |
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Due to all the recent changes, I am still tweeking my characters so, the possible 20% damage across the board boost for all enemies (Heard on the state of exile podcast) might be needed but is unknown at this point. I would how ever agree that Merc Malaki is simply not worth farming/multiboxing culling for chaos, just sticking to Dominus is good enough for that. The risk/reward you speak is quite lacking to complete Act 4 Merc past Mines(For the Skill point) other than to just do it.
Corrupted Piety is a very horribly designed fight on all difficulties, IMO. A simple fix however would be to either slow the beam down 20%ish or (My personal preference) is to put Pillars to Line of sight that death beam. Physical damage is also quite brutal in 75+ maps with the nerf to AA and life leech. I do feel that needs a look at in the coming months. Last edited by IncogHS102#4413 on Jul 16, 2015, 1:33:41 AM
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" Completely agree - mentality these days is gamers want everything handed to them. if effort or skill needs to be used, it's too hard. Modern day dumbed down gaming is the primary cause, but PoE now is especially enjoyable because of the difficulty. |
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" Failure isn't allowed or encouraged in PoE, period. The average player can't just pull 100 regret orbs out of their ass every few hours to experiment with builds. If you think this is somehow the average player's fault, you need to seek professional help. GGG designed the game with experimentation being monumentally cost prohibitive on purpose, and it's no player's fault. |
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" I'd say the balance between encouraging experimentation and punishing mistakes is outstanding. We get 20ish free respec points to fix mistakes, and a full tree reset every six months or so. Someone with a truly horrible, unfixable build will likely discover that at the end of normal. Perhaps that's 8 hours wasted, but that player can still make a new character and learn from his mistakes. And a player with a sub-par guild that lets him beat most of merciless before he gets stuck on Piety/Dominus/Malachai can probably still afford the gear to run lvl68maps atleast, or farm the docks/dried lake until he can. Again, this player still has options. |
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I am surprised no one has posted any actual data regarding the hypothesis of the first post.
Here's some data: http://steamcharts.com/app/238960#All Point of interest: When The Awakening went live Path of Exile had the most concurrent players it has ever had including when the game was released. It's probably too soon to see how the retention rate is but there are still a lot more players playing now than during the last patch. You may now resume speculating as to the retention rate of the game. Last edited by evewhiran#0861 on Jul 16, 2015, 7:57:33 AM
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" Sure, and I understand all this, and that giving, say, a full respec to every character would have big consequences (and not necessarily good ones). But the decision has consequences, and they are ones that, imho and experience, are negative for player retention, especially of less-hardcore, less-time-rich players (who are often quite liberal with their spending in F2P games). So yeah, you can slightly modify a build, if you went too far wrong, you're re-rolling (because the currency cost to fix it likely could not be earned in the time it takes to re-level). For many players, that's enough to make them very demoralized. They won't rage-quit, but you can bet money that most of them won't ever reach the same level on their next character, and likely will stop playing PoE within a week or three. How to fix this? I honestly don't know. It's made much worse by the fact that Normal doesn't really need any survival stats (except maybe A4 bosses), whereas Cruel and beyond absolutely demand them. So you can go very wrong, very easily. |
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" Let me just stop you right there. PoE is not a game about effort and skill, it's a game about knowledge and time investment. You're not playing Dota or CS:GO here. |
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