Effect of patch 3.6 on new players.

Ohhhh ... I think I qualify as the target audience here. Still relatively new, and definitely a D3 refugee.

I saw the community reaction to the patch notes, even before the patch notes were released -- and I knew the reaction was going to be pretty negative across the board. However, as a new player ... that doesn't really impact me. I don't have enough investment for these changes to influence me one way or another.

I can understand how these changes impact more invested players though, especially through the lens of how changes in D3 have impacted me through the years. What this tells me more than anything is to not get too attached to any single character, class or playstyle for the long term.

As it compares to D3, at least we don't have the issue of Paragon levels here. There's a huge difference in how the game plays with folks who have invested far more time, resulting in thousands of Paragon points that make the end-game play vastly different from one Level 70 with 2,500 Paragon, and another level 70 with just 100-200 Paragon. The closest thing in PoE is the existence of some legacy version of items that more invested players will have over newer players in Standard league play.

Anyway, after all the changes with this patch -- as a relatively new player, all I really want to know for this league is what's an acceptable build I can play where I can see most of the content, and hit some of the challenges to get the cosmetic rewards. My goal last league was to at least get reasonably into the end-game mapping portion, run 3/4 of the available Labs and try to decide which of the basic playstyles (Caster, Tank, Melee DPS, Minions, Ranged, etc.) appealed to me more than the others.

My goals for this season are to get a character up to 90 (I got one to 82 last league), and complete Uber Lab, and learn to understand crafting and trading a bit more than I do now. My stretch goal is to get to (and maybe even kill) the Shaper. As it is, I've got a good understanding of the basics of the game -- but I'm still amazed at how much depth there is still left to explore.

So the effect of Patch 3.6 on this new player is pretty much 'meh' ... but I understand how it impacts more invested players, and my takeaway is that I probably shouldn't get too emotionally invested with any one particular part of the game -- because it might go away at any time. I don't think that will keep me from becoming more invested in the game in general though, although it might set a future ceiling for me in terms of how much and how long I play the game.

I'm not in danger of leaving PoE anytime soon, but I can see how folks might take some of these extreme actions following a continued pattern of not being able to enjoy parts of the game they particularly enjoy -- or parts that just haven't seen the attention they believe are warranted.

Does that make sense?

"

DonTheMage wrote:

Ohhhh ... I think I qualify as the target audience here. Still relatively new, and definitely a D3 refugee.

I'm not in danger of leaving PoE anytime soon, but I can see how folks might take some of these extreme actions following a continued pattern of not being able to enjoy parts of the game they particularly enjoy -- or parts that just haven't seen the attention they believe are warranted.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for your in depth reply.
The bolded section sums up my suspicions.

I just wonder sometimes if GGG's strategy of players reactions is based on the early years of this games release.

This in my opinion would be a mistake for a number of reasons.

One being that content wasnt nerfed in the same way, i mean we never had retroactive nerfs for example, if there were item nerfs there were legacies.
We also didnt have the legacy map tab and tab situation that we have now.
Also back then peoples expectations of this game were probably different than they are now.
The list of reasons is long.

I just dont see any of this factored in to any patch notes and it makes me wonder about their vision for the future of the game.

I'm another new player. My reaction to the patch notes was mostly <shrug> since most of it doesn't effect me. The bits I found notable were:

1. They're buffing Essence Drain?!? OK... I know it says more about my inexperience than about the skill, but it's by far the most powerful skill I've used so far, melting bosses trivially, and one-shotting entire screens except when Contagion kills everything before the ED projectile gets there. So my occultist gets even more powerful soon (not to mention the energy shield and ES leech buffs); I'm not complaining, exactly, but that's weird to see.

2. The Slayer leech thing. That will affect my fourth character, Ascendant (Slayer/Raider) 2-H melee Cyclone, once she levels a bit further. Not sure how much it will affect her, but we'll find out. Probably still perfectly viable. Preventing a minutes-long buffer of healing sounds like a bug fix to me, and the fact that Slayer dominates the Ascendant ascendancy choices indicates some rebalancing is probably appropriate. Whether this was the correct way or time to do so, I have no idea...

In general my preference would have been for the patch notes to take every skill that can one-shot a screen (and beyond) and nerf them into a smoking crater. :D But it's already obvious that will never happen.

Regarding the broader question of new player retention, I agree with

"

Sullee wrote:

They very well might decide that they don't play enough to want to deal with league resets every few months though.
[snip]
I doubt many will want to suffer through all the reset pain and bad Trade2Win designs.

The Atlas resets could be a big issue. I do plan to mostly play in Standard from now on (well, from Friday on, whenever the migration finally completes - I need my crafting mod unlocks and Delve progress!). Standard should be a place to play at my own pace, taking as long as I like to do whatever I can do. Resetting the Atlas even in Standard every three months is the likeliest route for me leaving the game. I guess one way or another, if I can't finish Zana's quests, take a shot at these elder/shaper bosses, and whatever other endgame stuff is map-gated, all within three months, PoE is probably not the game for me. And I've already bought stash tabs to make the game remain playable after Act 10, so GGG has my money and doesn't really need to care what I think at this point.

I guess even with Atlas resets I might get by treating maps as just a daily game of "Where's Niko?" to power my Delving. But I think the rapidly increasing sulphite costs with depth probably make that unworkable.

3 months seems too short to me but I can see how in my jobless years like forever ago that I would really look forward to the competitive reset and build up. As an old man with a job I can easily get uber elder but felt like 3 months didn't give me time to get all my corruptions or other stuff I was building towards. I did start pretty late, though... I remember the old diablo seasons used to be WAY too long where things got really stale so this is certainly better than that.

"

Rakiii wrote:

There´s no (noticeable) influence on new players.

Yes, there has been. There are two notable sources:

Ex Diablo players: as the OP mentioned. What the OP perhaps failed to account for is that Diablo 3 has seasonal metas too, and the nerfs/buffs can be just as drastic. Spent an entire Season minmaxing the perfect "Might of the Earth" Leapquake Barbarian build? Tough, because it's getting nerfed and you'll now have to go with a "Wrath of the Wastes" Whirlwind Barbarian instead. Perhaps the comparison isn't equal, but regardless this sort of thing is something Diablo players are used to.

PS4 Players: the PS4 version of PoE was announced just before the Betrayal league started. This will have caused a metric ton of ARPG players who'd never had reason to pay much attention to PoE before to suddenly get excited about the game, or discovered the game for the first time. Any of those who happen to have computers decent enough to at least run PoE in minimal settings will have good reason to try-out and play around with the PC version of the game ahead of the game arriving on console (and news articles about PoE coming to PS4 often try to nudge readers into doing just that), even if they don't normally spend much time gaming on PC outside of this situation.

I have no idea of how big a slice of that community is interested in Path of Exile right now, or how many of those also have PC's, but I'd expect it to be a significant number.

Maybe that would explain GGG's constant delays with the PS4 version: they don't want to suddenly lose those extra players from the main version of the game :D

I hope they like "REMOVE ONLY" because they will get a lot of those if they stick around.

Most people don't play Standard because of that.

"

boyandroid wrote:

New Players are more adept in adapting to change compare to "Old" players.
Most old/veteran players already have habits that ingrain to them, that's why some of them were more reluctant to change.

-----

Actually I think the opposite. Most of us who have played since near the beginning are resigned to the yo-yo. At least the ones who have figured out that happiness lies not in lamenting old stuff but enjoying the new.

I believe that a new player in Betrayal who played (for instance) arc would be disappointed in the patch notes if they wanted to continue the faceroll.

"

plodd wrote:

Leech gutted (my own personal reason for quitting d3 a long time ago), although not the first major nerf of leech in this game, i just find it hard to argue this one was warranted in 99% of cases.

You do realize new players have absolutely no clue how leech works in this game, right? Hell, even most old players don't really get it. As far as the vast majority of players are concerned, and ESPECIALLY new ones, they're still gonna see themselves leeching something and won't notice any difference. It's only all the endless posts about it that'll clue them in to something having changed. Which, since they don't quite get it, is basically just telling them to be upset for something they can't even see while playing.

As for 'Path of Nerfs' (tm), the vast majority of the content of those patch notes were buffs. You're just deliberately choosing to pay attention to the dozen or so nerfs mixed in there.

Stupid question, with the new league, what happens to item filters?

"

DonTheMage wrote:

Ohhhh ... I think I qualify as the target audience here. Still relatively new, and definitely a D3 refugee.

I can understand how these changes impact more invested players though, especially through the lens of how changes in D3 have impacted me through the years. What this tells me more than anything is to not get too attached to any single character, class or playstyle for the long term.

Anyway, after all the changes with this patch -- as a relatively new player, all I really want to know for this league is what's an acceptable build I can play where I can see most of the content, and hit some of the challenges to get the cosmetic rewards. My goal last league was to at least get reasonably into the end-game mapping portion, run 3/4 of the available Labs and try to decide which of the basic playstyles (Caster, Tank, Melee DPS, Minions, Ranged, etc.) appealed to me more than the others.

So the effect of Patch 3.6 on this new player is pretty much 'meh' ... but I understand how it impacts more invested players, and my takeaway is that I probably shouldn't get too emotionally invested with any one particular part of the game -- because it might go away at any time. I don't think that will keep me from becoming more invested in the game in general though, although it might set a future ceiling for me in terms of how much and how long I play the game.

I'm not in danger of leaving PoE anytime soon, but I can see how folks might take some of these extreme actions following a continued pattern of not being able to enjoy parts of the game they particularly enjoy -- or parts that just haven't seen the attention they believe are warranted.

Does that make sense?

That's a good attitude to have. Keep it. And don't let this guy pretend he speaks for all older players, cos he doesn't. What you're seeing is just another bog standard example Negativity Bias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias The patch itself was actually mostly buffs, as for example ZiggyD's or Tarke's patch review videos also highlight.

As for builds, all the major content creators will be coming out with recommended league starter build videos around now. Just type in 'PoE 3.6 league starters' to find them. Pick which you like (mind that they typically won't include the new skills, as those are unknowns as to performance, so search for prospective planned builds on the forums if you want to try them out).