PoE is now not good F2P

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Sarno wrote:

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1453R wrote:

F2P is supposed to mean "play the game, see if you like it, and if you do pitch in a bit. We'll give you some nice extras for pitching in and helping to keep the game afloat." Why do people seem to think Free To Play is supposed to mean they can pull one over on the devs and play free forever without a single stitch of remorse, or a single pang of pain at all the cool little extras those of us who're currently pulling your weight get access to?

Because Valve. They used to make games. Supposedly, they're currently working on three, including that card game Artifact and two others (Valve and three in the same sentence?!).

Valves spend some of Steam's marketing budget on maintaining Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, which have monetisation policies no other company could ever hope to match. GabeN and crew couldn't care less if you never spend a dime on either one - if you open their store Steam and give them an opportunity to show you advertisements exciting announcements, they're happy. If you want to be cynical about it, even your friends list is basically an advertisement...

They're the freest of free-to-play games; the standard against which all others will be judged to their detriment. This results in an interesting conundrum. Should those games actually count? In terms of meaningful comparison, finding that the newest F2P game doesn't compare favourably with Dota 2 - like nearly all others don't - is not really informative. Yet just because few can match them doesn't necessarily mean they should be omitted from the discussion.

The narrative is decided by the consumer; the gamer. The same person who angrily erupted in response to Valve's & Bethesda's respective moves to monetise mods, insisted modders make enough from donations, then went right back to downloading mods and not donating a cent.

Its almost like those games need their own category

Subsidized games, no they are not free but rather funded by other IPs and endeavors

"

Zaludoz wrote:

*Stuf*

It sounds quite a bit like you want to like Path of Exile, but refuse to spend money on the game until the game accommodates your desire to not spend money on it. Or, to summarize: "I will only spend money on this game when this game has successfully removed any reason I might possibly have to spend money on it."

You can't see how that's a self-defeating circle?

Again - twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' the next time a Stash Sale comes around and literally every problem you've just listed here goes away. You could consider that Grinding Gear being viciously manipulative and forcing you into a horrible predatory pay-to-win EVIL MONEY_SUCKING CONSPIRACY(!!!)...or you could just consider twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' during a sale weekend to be the box price of a video game you would otherwise have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about buying for twenty bucks if it came with a map tab, a currency tab, and a premium tab to engage in easy* trade with, ne?

That's the question I'd suggest you ask: do you like Path of Exile enough that you would've paid twenty bucks for it if it came with everything you've already gotten for free, and then all the stash stuff two hundred points can buy you?

I mean, if you want to talk bad monetization that makes you feel icky for engaging in it, we can have us a little talk about MechWarrior Online, or literally anything made by Wargaming. If you think Path of Exile is bad, hoooooooo boy, have I got some horror stories for you...

@Sarno: that is an interesting point, yeah. My brother plays DotA pretty intensively, and he's always hyping up DotA's super amazeballs monetization scheme. But can you really call DotA a free-to-play when it's used specifically as a gateway drug to Steam and paid for in a way no other company on Earth could reasonably match? Nobody except Valve can build that scheme, but it continues to be an all-pervasive idea in the industry. "Why can't this game be as legit-free as Team Fortress?!"

People ask in scorn trying to get a leg up on their "favorite" game devs, but you're honestly more right than not - there's a lot of actual real-life reasons why someone like Grinding Gear cannot be as actually-free as Team Fortress.

"

lagwin1980 wrote:

Bullshit argument, stash tabs have been in place for a very long time, if it wasn't an issue before it shouldn't be an issue now, and you are basically now whining that GGG are scamming themselves by selling the new tabs at a fraction of the cost of actual stash tabs (like the map tab would be 1950+ points worth) AND they discount stuff....boo fucking hoo.

Wtf is this comment

With every new exp and new leagues this game gets more default loot thus it would only make sense to give more default tabs

I have 3 chars full of stuff because you cant hold this shit... even if you only take the good stuff

Div cards alone take up 1 or more tabs if your trying to get the set for alot of them (i do... mostly the good ones)

Maps take up way to much space
I have about 4 tabs full of currency


I still say they should give 1 tab free per EXP that comes out to hold the new shit... (even if one tab wont cut it since uniques take tons of space)

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1453R wrote:

"

Zaludoz wrote:

*Stuf*

It sounds quite a bit like you want to like Path of Exile, but refuse to spend money on the game until the game accommodates your desire to not spend money on it. Or, to summarize: "I will only spend money on this game when this game has successfully removed any reason I might possibly have to spend money on it."

You can't see how that's a self-defeating circle?

Again - twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' the next time a Stash Sale comes around and literally every problem you've just listed here goes away. You could consider that Grinding Gear being viciously manipulative and forcing you into a horrible predatory pay-to-win EVIL MONEY_SUCKING CONSPIRACY(!!!)...or you could just consider twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' during a sale weekend to be the box price of a video game you would otherwise have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about buying for twenty bucks if it came with a map tab, a currency tab, and a premium tab to engage in easy* trade with, ne?

That's the question I'd suggest you ask: do you like Path of Exile enough that you would've paid twenty bucks for it if it came with everything you've already gotten for free, and then all the stash stuff two hundred points can buy you?

Not quite.

The free trial version of the game is showing me how much work the game needs for me to consider it a game worth buying. Right now, it's worth playing for free. That's it, to me. If I had the UI elements that they're trying to sell me, it would still be that same unpolished game that isn't worth paying for At The Moment. (sure it has potential.)

If this was a retail game, and I played the free trial, and then saw the price tag with all the UI elements part of that, I still wouldn't buy this game right now. That's what I'm trying to say. These "QoL" convenience tabs are the bare minimum: a UI for all the game elements it has in it. It's like selling another hotkey bar "for convenience" in SW:TOR... GGG knew how overwhelming these trinkets were, and knew we'd need the tabs to really play this game.

I listed several reasons I wouldn't buy the game in its current condition previously (no in-game trade system, labyrinth, game design decisions leading to a space-shooter disguised as a hack'n'slash, balancing philosophy, etc)

On top of all that, purchases in this game are viewed as "support" of the developers. I strongly disagree with the design decisions I've seen over the years, so no, I'm not supporting what I've seen... that would be counterproductive to seeing positive changes to the game going forward.

I'd never buy a supporter pack in this game at any level with what I've seen thus far, and foresee for the game's future. The fact that people defend the game in its current state and say it's "worth" the prices they show in that store... yeah... no... we must value our money in much different ways.

As I said, I have a job, I buy games that I think are worth it. This game is not, at the moment, IMO. And they want people to buy pieces of the game's UI, and still call it F2P, describing them as "convenience" things... yeah, no... I've described how far from convenience they are in practical use.

I think you're very confused over what the term 'UI' means. Stash tabs, however fancy, are not 'UI'. They're an in-game thing you can get or not. 'UI', i.e. User Interface, doesn't really have anything to do with stash tabs.

Again, however - if you feel that a bank of thirty stash tabs and also every type of unique [X] Tab is a necessary and vital element of the game before one can properly play, then what does Grinding Gear charge for? You say that Supporter packs are sorely overpriced (and there's definitely arguments to be made there, however lacking in willpower my own Poor Decisions table shows me to be), but by the same token there are not that many games out there which get even a tenth-part of the ongoing features support Path of Exile gets. How is Grinding Gear expected to pay for that development if they're not allowed to make stuff people want to buy?

Nobody's telling you what to do with your money. If you don't like what Grinding Gear is doing then don't buy anything. But the argument was not "I don't think this game is currently worth the price of its packs", it was "this game is not good Free to Play anymore because new stash tabs are P2W". That is a point for debate, and one many of us find to be slightly silly.

I'll admit: I bought the Tab Bundle thing when it was available. I have a currency tab, an Essence tab, a Card tab, and a Quad tab. I will likely have a Map tab when it hits the stash sale rotations. I have somewhere in the region of twenty-five normal tabs, all of which I've upgraded to Premium.

The only one I'd consider a necessity is the Currency tab. Quad tabs are actively irritating, I would not convert my normal tabs into quad tabs even if I could. Div and Essence tabs are nice, but you don't find enough Essences anymore for that one to be anything but a bonus and the Div tab is fiddly enough I'm not actually sure it's an improvement. In addition, my tab usage has gone down over time, not up. I use fewer tabs each league I play, mostly just by learning how to not keep so much stupid crap. It used to be that by a league's end I'd be feeling cramped and bloated and considering another set of six tabs (which is how I got to ~25 in the first place). These days it's more typical for me to have five or ten sitting around doing screw-all.

I could get behind Grinding Gear giving players one premium tab to trade with and a Currency tab because good GOD does the Currency tab make this game so much nicer. Perhaps another regular tab too, to account for the stated increase in assorted crap they keep making us hang onto. But frankly? People don't need as much storage as they think they do, storage tabs are cheap and are regularly and predictably offered for even cheaper, and you can "not agree with the game's design decision" all you like.

If you're playing it regularly, you're riding the coattails of folks who do pay Grinding Gear. You can believe the game isn't worth supporting all you like - but because other people don't agree you still get to play it. You can tolerate some squeezing around the storage chest for your Ethical Freemium Stance, and those of us who get to pull your weight as well as our own can enjoy having nice things like specialty storage tabs and a plethora of fancy skins to walk around in so our Tabbies are less fugly.

Sounds like an equitable trade to me.

"

1453R wrote:

@Sarno: that is an interesting point, yeah. My brother plays DotA pretty intensively, and he's always hyping up DotA's super amazeballs monetization scheme. But can you really call DotA a free-to-play when it's used specifically as a gateway drug to Steam and paid for in a way no other company on Earth could reasonably match? Nobody except Valve can build that scheme, but it continues to be an all-pervasive idea in the industry. "Why can't this game be as legit-free as Team Fortress?!"

People ask in scorn trying to get a leg up on their "favorite" game devs, but you're honestly more right than not - there's a lot of actual real-life reasons why someone like Grinding Gear cannot be as actually-free as Team Fortress.

Not sure...

Perhaps we could try to get them referred to as ad-supported instead of free-to-play?

It’d be equal parts misleading and honest, but would at least remove them from the discussion.

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Sarno wrote:

Not sure...

Perhaps we could try to get them referred to as ad-supported instead of free-to-play?

It’d be equal parts misleading and honest, but would at least remove them from the discussion.

I like K1rage's term. "Subsidized games". That fits properly, in more ways than one. Not only does it describe exactly what they are, it's exactly the sort of Business-y term that makes one feel ever-so-faintly slimy talking about it. That's about right for that sort of discussion, methinks.

Like i know OP is a troll in general but come on this post is absurd. This is arguable the best F2P game on the market , its the only F2P game out there that isnt pay to win . Recommended or required hardware is not a measure of FTP you dont need to be able to play on a potato ( though i do so i disagree with your entire premise that it is unplayable ) .

Such an absurd load of horse shit this thread is .

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Zaludoz wrote:

"

1453R wrote:

"

Zaludoz wrote:

*Stuf*

It sounds quite a bit like you want to like Path of Exile, but refuse to spend money on the game until the game accommodates your desire to not spend money on it. Or, to summarize: "I will only spend money on this game when this game has successfully removed any reason I might possibly have to spend money on it."

You can't see how that's a self-defeating circle?

Again - twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' the next time a Stash Sale comes around and literally every problem you've just listed here goes away. You could consider that Grinding Gear being viciously manipulative and forcing you into a horrible predatory pay-to-win EVIL MONEY_SUCKING CONSPIRACY(!!!)...or you could just consider twenty bucks' worth of stash-tab-buyin' during a sale weekend to be the box price of a video game you would otherwise have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about buying for twenty bucks if it came with a map tab, a currency tab, and a premium tab to engage in easy* trade with, ne?

That's the question I'd suggest you ask: do you like Path of Exile enough that you would've paid twenty bucks for it if it came with everything you've already gotten for free, and then all the stash stuff two hundred points can buy you?

Not quite.

The free trial version of the game is showing me how much work the game needs for me to consider it a game worth buying. Right now, it's worth playing for free. That's it, to me. If I had the UI elements that they're trying to sell me, it would still be that same unpolished game that isn't worth paying for At The Moment. (sure it has potential.)

If this was a retail game, and I played the free trial, and then saw the price tag with all the UI elements part of that, I still wouldn't buy this game right now. That's what I'm trying to say. These "QoL" convenience tabs are the bare minimum: a UI for all the game elements it has in it. It's like selling another hotkey bar "for convenience" in SW:TOR... GGG knew how overwhelming these trinkets were, and knew we'd need the tabs to really play this game.

I listed several reasons I wouldn't buy the game in its current condition previously (no in-game trade system, labyrinth, game design decisions leading to a space-shooter disguised as a hack'n'slash, balancing philosophy, etc)

On top of all that, purchases in this game are viewed as "support" of the developers. I strongly disagree with the design decisions I've seen over the years, so no, I'm not supporting what I've seen... that would be counterproductive to seeing positive changes to the game going forward.

I'd never buy a supporter pack in this game at any level with what I've seen thus far, and foresee for the game's future. The fact that people defend the game in its current state and say it's "worth" the prices they show in that store... yeah... no... we must value our money in much different ways.

As I said, I have a job, I buy games that I think are worth it. This game is not, at the moment, IMO. And they want people to buy pieces of the game's UI, and still call it F2P, describing them as "convenience" things... yeah, no... I've described how far from convenience they are in practical use.

Uninstall and go play a game for casuals then . You also dont need every stash tab type , personally one regular tab is fine for div cards so that tab is just for those that want to see the cards and scroll through them, you dont need a map tab ive always just worked maps out of 2 regular tabs , Currency tab i think is very useful but if you cant bother to spend the money on it then you dont have to have it either .

Your argument that this game is unpolished when it has the greatest variety of builds and options of any ARPG in the history of the genre just shows you have no actual clue what you are talking about .

Take your troll posts elsewhere nobody is going to take you seriously here .

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Artaniz wrote:

Uninstall and go play a game for casuals then . You also dont need every stash tab type , personally one regular tab is fine for div cards so that tab is just for those that want to see the cards and scroll through them, you dont need a map tab ive always just worked maps out of 2 regular tabs , Currency tab i think is very useful but if you cant bother to spend the money on it then you dont have to have it either .

Your argument that this game is unpolished when it has the greatest variety of builds and options of any ARPG in the history of the genre just shows you have no actual clue what you are talking about .

Take your troll posts elsewhere nobody is going to take you seriously here .

First off, I'm not, and never have been, nor will be a troll. You may not like what I have to say, but I'm giving my honest outlook here, and for all the dislike I have of the game and the devs' decisions for the past couple years, I want to see this game get better. My family has always looked at ways to make things better, even if they're "good", they can always be better.

That critical eye has followed me to making my games, and playing others' games. As a game designer, I analyze what works and what doesn't in every game I play, sorta like an inner-dialog that's always running... it's how I think.

Variety != polish
Polish is putting the finishing touches on a feature, making it all work smoothly and thinking ahead on what functionality people will want and have it there so it shines like a gem to showcase. (that's why the map tab seems so rushed and unpolished, having no slots for chisels and map rolling currencies, no slots to vendor-recipe maps from within the tab... efficient searching and linking to the atlas? I mean, come on, they know what functions people expected from a map tab interface and they dropped the ball... and many hope they add it later. And that's just one example.)

As for "casual"... depends on what you consider casual. I don't play long hours, because I have other things to do, and better games to play at the moment... (New Life Festival in Elder Scrolls Online, leveling a Warden from 16-50, currently 31, to compliment my level 50 nightblade) but I do theorycraft, studying wiki entries, forging concepts into designs and into playable character plans much more for this game than any other in recent memory.

So, while I'm sure stash tab sales are one of their primary sources of income from the low end of the fish tank, perhaps even being a major thing the whales spend their points on, I think a lot of it is money-grabbing bad-design by design, forcing purchases of UI elements that organize and store items that they know are clogging up inventories, and they introduce new inventory-clogging items with almost every league. Call it a conspiracy theory all you like, but if this game wasn't selling these stash tabs, and it was an offline game, you can be sure the Currency Tab, Map Tab, Essence Tab, (at least one) Premium trade-enable tab, and Divination Card tabs would all be integral parts of the User Interface.

I'm sure they could sell plenty of normal storage tabs while providing all accounts the currency tab. I think serious traders will buy more than 1 trade-enabled tab to make their merchant empires grow faster, and a single trade tab on each account won't run GGG into the poor house. The Map tab, unpolished as it is, feels like a missing element in the navigation of the endgame. Essences feel like they were designed to take up as much inventory space as possible, much like talismans, and while Essences were rolled into the game, they got an interface to store and upgrade them efficiently and neatly. I wouldn't bother with essences without such a tab, if they weren't usually tied to challenges in the leagues.

If you understand where I'm coming from, great, if not, I've made my viewpoint as clear as I think it needs to be expressed. I don't come here to argue, but I do like my viewpoint to be understood, rather than misinterpreted and brushed aside.