Player Manifesto: We want choice

Who I am:
I'm a casual. I work a full time job. I have friends that I regularly meet in person. And I love playing PoE. I'm someone who wants to play your game to have fun and fully understand that I'll never be in the same league as streamers and other full-time players.

What's wrong:
The obvious draws of PoE is the breadth and depth of content and possibilities. Each new league brings something new to the table which is cool, and if it's not my cup of tea I can choose to focus on any of what feels like 100's of other mechanics and wait until the next league. That is we used to be able to do that. Now every league just gets tacked on in a way that removes choice from players. Want to focus on delve but don't have 1000's of hours to play and 100's of exalts to invest? Too bad for you. Want to focus on any particular league mechanic that isn't the current league? As a casual this is no longer possible. As a casual I know that I will only have enough time in a league to level up a couple characters to 90+ and that I'll only be able to complete a couple big goals; last league I killed Shaper and got to 220+ delve for the first time.

The problem isn't that there are a bunch of different options/content to choose from; the problem is that I can't choose. The lack of choice is especially punishing for casual players as we don't have time to do the end-game of all league content every league. This means that as implemented currently people like myself, aka a majority of your player base, is now fully cut off from ever being able to experience any end-game content (especially league content).

How to fix it:
Let the players decide what they want to play. A simple way you could do this would be to add league mechanics as Zana mod options in the map device. You could still allow for random mechanics to be chosen (as it is today) when a map is run; just also allow the player to override which league mechanic gets chosen if they want to. And before you say, "But we have scarabs!", remember that scarabs are locked behind currency trade walls and the randomness of syndicate encounters. If players could choose what league spawns on a map I guarantee that your Quarry farming problems will decay away and be forgotten.

"But wait!", some will say, "What if it's too rewarding to let players do what they want?" First off; by forcing a map to be Delve, Bestiary, Incursion, Betrayal, etc., it means you're not adding any other modifier like Beyond or Breach. Secondly, if you really feel your leagues are so imbalanced reward-wise, and can't be bothered to tweak drop rates, then simply make certain league mods more expensive than others. Personally, I think giving the player the choice of what league mechanic to participate in should be fairly cheap (or even free <gasp>). The vast improvement of having some sort of choice at all would be so significant that even if you do it poorly to start (like putting up pay walls for these league options, once again distancing from casual players) it would still allow for a more enjoyable experience.

In Summary:
I love PoE and want to continue loving PoE. The biggest problem at present is that players don't have meaningful choice as to what content to pursue. All I ask is that you let us choose what parts of your game we wish to engage with (as most of us don't have time to engage with it all).



Bonus: How to Fix Delve!
Developer speak; use the same seed to generate the layout for everyone's mine each league. Just think about it for a minute and you'll understand why this makes sense; this allows you (GGG) to preview what the mine will look like and guarantee that what players experience is what you want them to. The actual instances are still randomly generated, the specific loot is still random, but everyone will have the same potential access to bosses/zones. This became more important when you linked certain important crafting recipes (6-link) to particular random zones. Let me know if you want a more detailed design manifesto on this; I happen to also be a programmer.

Do you have a mouse in your pocket?

One idea to make something similar of what you described to happen would be making next league a simple mechanic like just adding new mods on monsters and focus on creating a job system.

How this job thing would work?
Simple, at the end of act 10 when you go to oriath zana will ask what job you want now that you saved the world exile and give you the option to choose to help one of the current "masters". This would be a permanent choice per character (that can be changed with x regrets) and would work this way:
-Do you want to work with zana in the atlas? Player will find all master encounters in maps.
-Do you want to work with niko in the mines? Player will ONLY naturally find niko encounters in maps.
-Do you want to work with alva in the expeditions? Player will ONLY naturally find alva in maps.
-Do you want to work with Jun to dismantle the syndicate? Player will ONLY naturally find jun in maps.
-DO you want to work with einhar to hunt beasts? Player will ONLY naturally find einhar in maps.

And so on as new mechanics are introduced. This would encourage the creation of more especific character roles to beat each kind of challenge (if i want to do incursion i need a fast clearing character, if i want to defeat the syndicate i need a tough one and so on).

Now what people always say is that if this is done, everyone will be doing niko, if that's true GGG needs to analyse if everyone is doing mines because its profit is way higher than other mechanics OR if it's because its more fun. If the reality is the rewards, nerf it to a comfortable spot, people that like delving will keep delving if the rewards are lowered. And more than that if everyone is delving and i choose to beast, imagine the price i will be able to sell the beasts since i will be the only one doing it, or if i am the only one doing alva imagine the price i will be able to sell double corrupt things.

I said something similar a few days ago:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2465086

Giving us options - good.

Forcing options on us which we don't want to use - bad.

Please make Syndicate missions and Beast missions ones that don't start until we select them from the respective masters.

Leaguestones.

The answer to all the problems.

The stone drops are random. Yes, people will preferentially run a select type (Delve, Perandus, Breach, etc), but they will also run the others - the Legacy league proved this.

You can tailor the rarity of particular stones to spice up your precious trade market as well, although I would hate you like poison if you made the favorites regal drop chance or the like.

Edit - all complaints about content bloat and the unavoidable Syndicate encounters disappear like mist in the sun with leaguestones.

And you can include new League content in the exact same manner you are doing currently, and then once a League ends simply implement a new leaguestone.

You can even rotate leaguestones in and out every League like Zana mods, provided you don't make the favorites too rare. Again, don't get fucking greedy, GGG.

In conclusion, I continue my campaign to Make Leaguestones Core. That Leaguestone selection pop-up should be front and center in the marketing of your game. Get On Board!

Edit 2 - And look, GGG, a new opportunity to sell us another seasonal tab - the Leaguestone tab. It's already made, just change the map tab from tier and map type to stone type and you are done. And you could be doing the same pounding of the wallets like you are doing with Map tabs by changing the stone "types" every league somehow so old stones aren't storable. THINK ABOUT IT. I am willing to hand you this economic olive branch for the possibility of having leaguestones permanently implemented.

At this point , I have to believe a player manifesto will not mean anything to GGG.

Ok guys, let me explain something to you:

You, and me, and everyone here are now beta-testers for Chineese players, that a. have more players in PoE than the rest of the world combined, b. mostly play Standard.

Does it all make sence now?

That's why ALL future leagues will be added to the Core.
That's why all leagues can start "broken" - they will be fixed by the time they are added for the real players there.
That's why all leagues will be over-complexed - they are created with the idea that you start already having all the stuff from previous playing and are to keep you busy for 3 more months.

"

Mortyx wrote:

One idea to make something similar of what you described to happen would be making next league a simple mechanic like just adding new mods on monsters and focus on creating a job system.

How this job thing would work?
Simple, at the end of act 10 when you go to oriath zana will ask what job you want now that you saved the world exile and give you the option to choose to help one of the current "masters". This would be a permanent choice per character (that can be changed with x regrets) and would work this way:
-Do you want to work with zana in the atlas? Player will find all master encounters in maps.
-Do you want to work with niko in the mines? Player will ONLY naturally find niko encounters in maps.
-Do you want to work with alva in the expeditions? Player will ONLY naturally find alva in maps.
-Do you want to work with Jun to dismantle the syndicate? Player will ONLY naturally find jun in maps.
-DO you want to work with einhar to hunt beasts? Player will ONLY naturally find einhar in maps.

And so on as new mechanics are introduced. This would encourage the creation of more especific character roles to beat each kind of challenge (if i want to do incursion i need a fast clearing character, if i want to defeat the syndicate i need a tough one and so on).

Now what people always say is that if this is done, everyone will be doing niko, if that's true GGG needs to analyse if everyone is doing mines because its profit is way higher than other mechanics OR if it's because its more fun. If the reality is the rewards, nerf it to a comfortable spot, people that like delving will keep delving if the rewards are lowered. And more than that if everyone is delving and i choose to beast, imagine the price i will be able to sell the beasts since i will be the only one doing it, or if i am the only one doing alva imagine the price i will be able to sell double corrupt things.

Loved this idea! Hope someone from GGG reads it.

Fully agree with the basic idea of giving us choice.

But somebody has already suggested a more elegant way of doing this, in my eyes:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2458667