I'm back to comment on tencent and the current POE

Hey everyone, some of you might remember me from old arguments mostly, sometimes suggestions or the occasional build guide (though my builds were all shit).

Anyways, I don't play POE anymore but I've been monitoring things here and there thinking I might want to come back with some buddies some day when a good league starts, which incursion looks alright so might have been incursion.

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Anyways about the topic at hand, I have one thing to say about the tencent thing: from my understanding tencent is a China-based company? I don't know the demographics of POE players, but it seems that a lot come from NZ and from the US. I imagine there are a lot of other European countries in there as well. Those people probably are not going to be OK with GGG being under ownership of a China-based company.

Thing is, I doubt anyone from any of those countries would be OK with any part of their lives being controlled by China or related groups in any way. I don't think anyone playing POE actually DISLIKES China, but the culture in China is very different from the average POE player's in the sense that China notably restricts the freedoms of the individuals living there in several ways that most POE players would consider offensive and to some degrees inhumane. Maybe it has improved in the last several years, I don't know, but I haven't heard as much.

I think many of the players believe that those social policies will begin to present themselves in POE in one way or another.

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So moving on from the that, I do have one thing I want to say about POE's current state - I can't comment too much on balance since I don't really play any more, but it's still important and I hope it matters to GGG now more than it did before, where Chris Wilson literally told the players "we don't care if some skills are bad, we want there to be some good skills and some bad skills". I fundamentally disagree with this idea on a very basic level, because I don't know why you would NOT want all of your content to be usable in the game in a realistic way - people see the content the game has to offer and they want to try it out and not be disappointed. So I hope that has improved.

To get more specific from there (and not commenting on the current state which I'm not qualified to comment on anymore), I looked at the HC top groupings and noticed a few things about shadow ascendancies specifically: there aren't any in the HC bestiary top 100 save for one assassin and one saboteur. I also highly doubt there are any viper strike builds, or glacial hammer builds, currently considered viable for HC groups as an example, but maybe GGG would surprise me? I doubt it. I DO see some shadows in SSF HC top 100, so that tells me exactly what I thought last time I played: the class is viable if you don't want to trade or party as much as any other class, but as soon as group play becomes a thing shadow becomes garbage tier.

This is exactly the same problem I had with the game before - people who want to play as shadows in HC leagues basically get to choose between assassin (suicide ascendancy for HC leagues) or saboteur (good for trap builds, too bad traps are total garbage in party play). There's another trickster on the next page at level 99, so at least one trickster is close, but not a lot of representation for this class in HC party play. I did make several comments about this before I stopped playing POE in the past. Monsters have more HP in parties but you don't get more trap charges - RIP trappers in parties.

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I'd like to go into more detail but my time away from POE has left me with too little knowledge about the game, all I can really look at is the overarching numbers and the news related to the game.

Best of luck to GGG in the future.

If negative influences start to manifest themselves in PoE, whether they be from tencent, china, or new zealand, I stop playing PoE. That simple. Until they manifest themselves though, I don't see the point in worrying about it.

As far as which builds are viable in party vs. solo, this comes and goes with a number of classes and builds. I'm sure it will change in 3.3 with the new skills, items, etc. The flavor of the month comes and goes, but luckily this game provides more flexibility to build as you like vs. most other games. There are many non-meta setups that are completely viable for solo and party play.

Traps are being mega-buffed in the new update. You will see some saboteurs for sure.

Chinese company, American company - who cares? Governments are going to stick their nose in everywhere when they're not wanted anyway. It's not like the American government is any better.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Traps are being mega-buffed in the new update. You will see some saboteurs for sure.

Chinese company, American company - who cares? Governments are going to stick their nose in everywhere when they're not wanted anyway. It's not like the American government is any better.

Well, the thing about traps is that as long as they have a cooldown and charges they can only be op in solo and bad in groups. If ggg buffs traps as you're saying, they'll be too good everywhere. If they nerf traps, they'll be trash everywhere.

They need to allow traps to be spammable like any spell in order for this to be able to be balanced.

And yeah I'm not a fan of the American government in many ways but we largely have a reasonable degree of freedom, China simply controls too much of their people's lives. It will bleed into poe.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Traps are being mega-buffed in the new update. You will see some saboteurs for sure.

Chinese company, American company - who cares? Governments are going to stick their nose in everywhere when they're not wanted anyway. It's not like the American government is any better.

Well, the thing about traps is that as long as they have a cooldown and charges they can only be op in solo and bad in groups. If ggg buffs traps as you're saying, they'll be too good everywhere. If they nerf traps, they'll be trash everywhere.

They need to allow traps to be spammable like any spell in order for this to be able to be balanced.

And yeah I'm not a fan of the American government in many ways but we largely have a reasonable degree of freedom, China simply controls too much of their people's lives. It will bleed into poe.

i totaly disagree on this. the cd on traps might make them weaker in party play but its the one thing that really makes them feel different from totems and other things.
i love the cd on them just for the sake of making them feel different to play with.
swaping around builds every league is what makes me come back every league.

I sympathize with the view of people who don't like the fact Tencent attempted to create a social scoring system once before.

I do not sympathize with your views however OP. Your opinions come off as baselessly anti-China in bias. It's like you are telling me that if GGG had done business with an American company, DESPITE the fact the company has a hands-off record, that somehow we would be supporting the Iraq war, global military and democratic interventionalism, and that these views would seep into our game.

No, it won't. Tencent has a hands-off track record.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

Well, the thing about traps is that as long as they have a cooldown and charges they can only be op in solo and bad in groups. If ggg buffs traps as you're saying, they'll be too good everywhere. If they nerf traps, they'll be trash everywhere.

They need to allow traps to be spammable like any spell in order for this to be able to be balanced.

I guess you haven't read about the trap updates yet!

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And yeah I'm not a fan of the American government in many ways but we largely have a reasonable degree of freedom, China simply controls too much of their people's lives. It will bleed into poe.

Chinese companies are controlled by the government. With American companies it's the other way around. I'm not sure which one is worse.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

I sympathize with the view of people who don't like the fact Tencent attempted to create a social scoring system once before.

I do not sympathize with your views however OP. Your opinions come off as baselessly anti-China in bias. It's like you are telling me that if GGG had done business with an American company, DESPITE the fact the company has a hands-off record, that somehow we would be supporting the Iraq war, global military and democratic interventionalism, and that these views would seep into our game.

No, it won't. Tencent has a hands-off track record.

I went out of my way to make sure I wasn't appearing anti-China because that isn't what I am trying to do. I don't know what else I can do to my point of view to make it more pro-China. If I put a picture of a flag there will it help? I think China is clearly on their way up in the world, but their social policies I can't agree with. The country is moving ahead but the social policy isn't maturing to reflect that.

I'd like to hope you're correct, but the first thing that happened as I logged into the website (to tell you as much) is the terms were updated and I had to accept whatever terms were changed in order to be able to post here. Haven't had that happen for as long as I remember posting on these forums and/or playing POE, and I'm not sure why I need to accept license terms to post on a forum. Do any of you remember doing that on other forums anywhere else? For playing the game maybe, posting on a forum? Mmmmm, can't say I remember that being normal but maybe it is on some forums.

Tinfoil hat? Maybe. Unrelated? Doubt it. Anyone know what was changed in the terms?

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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And yeah I'm not a fan of the American government in many ways but we largely have a reasonable degree of freedom, China simply controls too much of their people's lives. It will bleed into poe.

Chinese companies are controlled by the government. With American companies it's the other way around. I'm not sure which one is worse.

I'm not sure which one is worse either, but to say our government is controlled by companies isn't exactly true. There's a constant war going on here by the left (big govt) and the right (big business) and yeah, nobody looking out for the little guy. It's better than only have one central source of power, IMO, for the little guy anyways.

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Thing is, I doubt anyone from any of those countries would be OK with any part of their lives being controlled by China or related groups in any way. I don't think anyone playing POE actually DISLIKES China, but the culture in China is very different from the average POE player's in the sense that China notably restricts the freedoms of the individuals living there in several ways that most POE players would consider offensive and to some degrees inhumane. Maybe it has improved in the last several years, I don't know, but I haven't heard as much.

Where did you learn this kind of thinking from, the American media? This is what typical American anti-(insert country) propaganda looks like.

How is it that our lives will be controlled by China? Their culture can be viewed just is as dictator-like as America's is, you get a different spin based on what country's news media is telling you the story of course. Didn't America just put a torturer into head of CIA? Also aren't Americans just kind of oblivious to global geo-politics while their country do all 90% of the actual world damage and "dictatorship"? Doesn't America make most of the "rules" that other country must follow otherwise get invaded or sanctioned etc...? Doesn't America have a lot of scandal and even possibility of political assassination in recent news?

I don't suppose you are knowledgeable at all about Spain, where criticizing the royal family publicly gets you pretty f'd, among recent crackdown on Catalonia. This can be spun as a dictatorship as well.

Anyway, what I'm saying isn't TRUTH so much as it is a matter of PERSPECTIVE.

In the end of the day: the social scoring program is bad. If there's any reason to feel unhappy about Tencent, it is that they attempted it before. There's difference between what I just said, than writing "Tencent is Chinese, being owned by China company is equivalent to being associated with an inhumane culture" seems unspecific, narrow in perspective, and even borderline racist (because I'm pretty sure the same kind of reaction would not occur if it was a American, European, or even Russian company).

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I think China is clearly on their way up in the world, but their social policies I can't agree with. The country is moving ahead but the social policy isn't maturing to reflect that.

What? Social credit scoring aside, their social policy HAS become more mature over the years. I suppose you do not travel either, but I can tell you that China has grown more mature over the last two decades, and a lot more "international". I visit cities with "international schools" where they speak english relatively well and I can also say that the culture in China is not the way you are portraying. I am traveling there and then to Japan this summer as well. Also fun fact, the Chinese can be quite political active right now in protesting their government, would you have guessed it? (but this comes back to why I don't like the social credit scoring program)

I think being forced to conduct a lot of trans-national businesses such as with GGG is what's going to eventually have to open China up socially anyway. It's literally been decades for them, you have to understand that people are still alive since the "cultural revolution" in China, so the process is gradual but also evident.

I don't suppose you are familiar with League of Legends at all, applying all the political things you claim combined with the last 8 years of League of Legends pretty much sums up how wrong you are anyway. I would recommend you to look up youtube videos of LoL or of foreigners living in China, that stuff is available now and is better than letting whatever mainstream media you consume shape your world views.

tl;dr - tencent is a great choice for the game, though I can't agree with specifically tencent's political history - but for a more specific reason than just calling China inhumane. I think it's important to be specific.

Yeah, China's fine. As long as people don't criticise the government, they're not really that limited in what they can do at all. Well, I guess they can't really criticise anyone in power, either. Or celebrate their religion. Or use forbidden words. Or talk about forbidden topics. Or complain if other people are getting their rights taken away. Or accurately discuss historical events. Or read independent media. Or access the World Wide Web. But otherwise they are super free.

Oh well, at least you'll get a fair trial if you get accused of any of those things. At least, the government will tell you it's fair. Very fair.