Thoughts on GGG's dishonesty, false advertising, and new stash tabs.

Hi, GGG. I looked at your announcement, and watched the Youtube videos.

(This one: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2882046)

I assume you noticed the percentage of downvotes on them. Your next step is to take a moment and reflect, with a healthy dose of honesty and humility, upon why that might be the case.

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Bex_GGG wrote:

We will, of course, continue with updates to the Currency Tab with slots for new currency items that are released with future expansions.

Before you do that, you need to explain to the community why you don't consider catalysts a form of currency but do consider whetstones and scraps a form of currency. They both improve quality on an item, did you notice?

You also need to explain to the community why you don't consider simulacrum scraps to be fragments when they are so obviously analogous to many other items you do consider fragments.

And this is a harsh question, but I consider it a 100% fair one: Why do we have to point this out to you? I can hardly imagine that these concerns were not among the first things brought up in internal discussions surrounding the design and marketing of these new tabs.

You yourself identify delirium orbs, simulacrum splinters, and simulacrums as "stackable currency" or "map fragments." (I assume you did so because they quite obviously are.)
Source: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2784312

You yourself identify blight maps as, um, maps. (Well, of course. So why do we have to pay again to find them easily?)
You yourself identify oils as "stackable currency."
Source: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2627576

Did you think your players would be too blind to notice, or what?

Why are you utterly ignoring this, as if it were a non-issue? Don't you think that paying customers deserve the minimal courtesy of explaining why they are no longer getting what they paid for? I mean, the fragment tab was already lampooned both for being quite overpriced and for being a separate paid MTX from the map tab, and now you aren't even honoring its ostensible function.

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These new tabs will eventually go on sale with normal stash tab discounts. They won't be featured in the stash tab sale happening this coming weekend

Then don't advertise them as such. You did last time, and it was rude.

Then you continued to do so after it was pointed out to you, and that was incredibly rude, because it was no longer an honest mistake.

Do it a third time and you are practically assassinating your own character.

Edit: And there you go doing EXACTLY the same false advertising I asked you not to. (As if one of your customers should have to go out of his way to beg you not to advertise falsely!) You are simply amazing, GGG. You must think that you are now, as of 2020, beyond reproach and criticism. That your huge budget and Tencent backing excuse you from the basic human need to tell the truth. Thus the word "dishonesty" in the updated thread title.

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The bundle will not be further discounted, and will probably be removed in the future because it only makes sense to users who need exactly these three tabs.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this isn't a (classic) sales tactic to make people "buy this bundle now! Available for a limited time only!" But please be aware that that's how it sounds, even if that was not deliberate.

Also, be aware that the current consensus surrounding these new tabs is that you are becoming more and more cynical and contemptuous of your players as a consequence of Tencent's influence. Please prove us wrong by responding appropriately to the concerns your players are raising.

tl;dr (courtesy of TekZappa):

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TekZappa wrote:

1- I already bought a fragment tab, why can't I put those fragments there?

2- I already bought a currency tab, why can't I put those currencies there?

3 -I already bought a map tab, why can't I put those blight maps there?
[and be able to search for them]

These are legitimate questions, and I would like you to answer them. I know it won't be in this thread, because that's not your style, but you do need to provide answers to all three questions.

The longer you wait to do so, the greater the damage done to your reputation.

From these 3 tabs, I can only see a proper use for the metamorph one.

Everything else should have been implemented to existing tabs. Period.

+1

and now when this blew up we have an announcement of promised qol updates

it is like election: "ill promise you more than the other guy! trust me!"

ill hand them that - league launch went well and the issues with league and 2h rework take longer than usual to appear. it is a perfect time to milk the (rapidly shrinking) playerbase

but the way they decided to utilize this time is.. questionable.

not to mention that the crumbs bloat this game has can be EASILY solved by increasing basic stack size from 'definitely too small' to 'acceptable' and sell 'amazingly large stack size!' for premium

catalysts stacking up to 10? when you might need 20 to upgrade one item?


Apple is a great company because they can (or could, not following them laetly) create a solution for a problem you do not know you have and sell a well done solution to you before others.

new stash tabs is 'we created a problem for you, now you have to pay to solve it'

it doesnt smell well

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sidtherat wrote:

Apple is a great company because they can (or could, not following them laetly) create a solution for a problem you do not know you have and sell a well done solution to you before others.

Problems like slowing down your OS so you'd buy a new phone sooner, or having interfaces incompatible with common standards? :)

Now, honestly, no idea why the currency tab can't have sub-tabs on the bottom for other currency types, dunno about the rest of you but I don't need oils or catalysts very often.

Still singing, I see.

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raics wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

Apple is a great company because they can (or could, not following them laetly) create a solution for a problem you do not know you have and sell a well done solution to you before others.

Problems like slowing down your OS so you'd buy a new phone sooner, or having interfaces incompatible with common standards? :)

Now, honestly, no idea why the currency tab can't have sub-tabs on the bottom for other currency types, dunno about the rest of you but I don't need oils or catalysts very often.

i refer to pre-phone Apple or early phone Apple. recent history is typical 'people are willing to pay for this? really? MILK THEM!' but earlier they really had to do stuff others didnt know people need yet and do it well enough so competitors couldnt learn on their mistakes and catch up

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sidtherat wrote:

and now when this blew up we have an announcement of promised qol updates

it is like election: "ill promise you more than the other guy! trust me!"

lol, very similar to what I wrote: it's the behavior of a cheap ass politician who noticed that he has caused a PR disaster.

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Bex_GGG wrote:

These new tabs will eventually go on sale with normal stash tab discounts. They won't be featured in the stash tab sale happening this coming weekend

Then don't advertise them as such. You did last time, and it was rude.

Then you continued to do so after it was pointed out to you, and that was incredibly rude, because it was no longer an honest mistake.

Do it a third time and you are practically assassinating your own character.

Edit: And there you go doing it. You are simply amazing, GGG. You must think you are beyond reproach and criticism.

The entire stash tabs thing could have been done in so many other ways. There could have been a simple "league tab" for specific league drops, or simply integrate it in the current stash tabs, there is more than enough room in the currency tab+map tab+fragments tab for a lot of things from delirium to blight to metamorph and so on.


But yeah, guess what, they are greedy, promising "continuous growth" to the shareholders means that you need to invent new ways to make money from a limited number of players,as this isn't Fortnite or something, there aren't millions towards tens of millions of people playing.

So.....yeah, more and more lame mtx,more and more stash tabs, "limited offer, buy now". They know EXACTLY what they are doing, but the job of the guys from marketing,from public relations and such, is to spin this in the best way possible to make it sound completely different from what it actually is.

I don't have any hopes of this getting better, or them caring about it,this is happening a lot more often since they went full corporate, the tencent deal and so on. Once you go corporate,there is no turning back, the focus is money,quality gets shoved in the back room and the focus of a lot of departments in the corporation will be on simply making as much money for as little investment as possible.