How to spot a downward trend... POE will struggle in the year ahead.

A downward trend is actually a pretty healthy way to approach PoE2 in 2022.

i am pretty sure it will.

questionable decisions were taken without any commentary on the backlash.

they'd deserve it at this point.


something happened, they used to be cool.

"

MarcEric wrote:

...But forging ahead with POE 2... which every flop leagues incoming dwindles the hype I have for it... and the fact that Diablo 2 resurrected might actually pop up at about the exact same time... and you have lost your base altogether...

D2 was and is "resurrected" (alive and well) thanks to some great D2 modders that have created Path of Diablo and Median XL. I'm playing PoD this summer with 3 members of our family and enjoying it immensely. The extra skills and inventory space for charms is wonderful. And the fact that a 4 player party is nearly always lag free, even on older hardware, it's the perfect stay at home multi-player arpg to play during the pandemic.

"

MarcEric wrote:

...
Some will remain, the sponsored streamers... but the exodus will be huge. Most older players will go back to simplicity and nostalgia. (frankly that's what brought us to this game in the beginning... and eerie familiar feel with a twist). And the hype will move on...

There will definitely be a shake up come PoE 2 going into the "upside down" with sockets on gems instead of gear. Many of the old guard will quit but GGG is counting on a new generation of arpg addicts players to keep them in the black for another few years. Only time will tell if they can pull one more rabbit out of their arpg hat or if the end times (mass exodus) will be upon them.

"

MarcEric wrote:

What appears right is that Chris Wilson thought he had found the never ending manufactured recipe for an ever playabe game... And doing so, every iteration seems more like a repackaging of the previous with more useless skills that end up revamped and highlighted in a future repetitive iteration.

For insight into the thinking of Chris and company you need to give his Game Developers Conference talk a listen. Mostly boring but the central message from Chris to the attendees (remember these are other game developers looking to create the next great hit game) is that of creating new content that can be made available at regular intervals all the time (like the slow steady drip of an iv). Humans are desiring routine and if you (game dev) can feed your playerbase regularly (treat them as junkies jonzing for their next gaming fix) then you should in theory get them to play your game forever. So for PoE GGG pushes out a new challenge league every 3 months to "feed" the PoE addicts. So far his thinking has worked better than many other arpg devs (PoE is still in the top 100 on Steam Charts (18th as of 2020-07-19).

"

MarcEric wrote:

Too much of a good thing does become a bad thing. for casual players (i.e. not 24/7) the amount of time and needed outsider resources required to learn the game is way too time consuming vs. the actual fun factor.

Very true. I hung in longer than most casuals (probably too long) well beyond the point of getting any good returns on my time investment. The quest of GGG (Chris' insanity) to attempt to kill out the insane race to 100 madness hasn't really stopped the top end sharks (it's still a feeding frenzy at league start racing to 100 for them) but has definitely killed out most of the rest of us as in "what's the point anymore?"

"

MarcEric wrote:

As well, the SSF choice revealed an unwillingness to make this game coop. If the lag and screen overwhelming graphics are not enough of a deterrent.

Yes, GGG doesn't care to address/fix the multi-player performance problems that have plagued PoE since day 1. As long as there are sufficient solo players they don't have to. Same for quality of play. If player counts are routinely high enough to stay financially healthy they don't need to expend any resources to fix the many QoL problems plaguing PoE. And adding SSF is GGG's way of saying that they know many players hate trade-chat but we don't ever intend to make trading work well for the non-slavers (that would be "too easy" to gear up and all that bilge water bs) so go play solo in this self-found league we just created as if it's a badge of honor to show all that "we will play your arpg with our noses cut off since we won't ever get a good working trade function here".

"

MarcEric wrote:

I really enjoyed this game, it was pretty well thought and amazing until they started litterally dumping more and more purposeless stuff that needed fixing a month through a 3 months league.

Once GGG determined that the best way to feed their playerbase was to push out new content every 3 months (mark it on the calendar to keep them coming back) that locked them into the hectic 3 month create/code challenge league cycle. Many QoL features are never addressed and coded (hell there's no time for niceties) and many more problems (bugs) just never get any time for fixing unless it is a game breaking problem. This is the trap that GGG is in now and forever by feeding the arpg addicts with a ladder reset every 3 months. So coming up with a new mechanic every 3 months is difficult and as time goes on will only get more difficult for GGG. It will be interesting to see just how long GGG can stave off a large exodus of players that have finally decided "no mas."

I wouldnt count too much on a company which repeats its failures/mistakes.

The idea was as so often very cool, but repeating synthesis but in worse was just that, worse.
One month into the league and they finally raised the storagetanks capacity from 300 to 1000...mind=blown

"

TheFazzo wrote:

I call BS on this and predict around October there will be a massive spike of returning players.

Whenever the new league starts, yes, very likely. Followed by an even more massive drop if the league is as disappointing to most as this one.

Meanwhile, how do you think MTX sales will do, since that's the actual money GGG get?
Think many people are going to be motivated to purchase supporter packs in advance, this time? I've seen a lot of players, with a lot of badges, saying that at best they'll wait and see. The more you merrily wave goodbye to, the less money GGG will get in future.

Certainly there is significantly less forum activity to date. This place used to thrive.

"

Tolerantzdestr0yer wrote:

"

rzuk892 wrote:

It's like the "WoW is dead" meme - I don't like the game anymore so obviously the game is dying and something something WoW killer and blah blah vanilla was better, the new content is bad.

ResidentSleeper

well looking at the steam charts it looks like he is right though

on the other hand: dish out a good league and the numbers will rise.

Still worried about what they give us with poe2

I'm confused, when I look at steam charts I actually see a higher monthly average than what we had in march by a few thousand players?
https://steamcharts.com/app/238960#1m

edit:made link clickable

"

teknik1200 wrote:

"

Tolerantzdestr0yer wrote:

"

rzuk892 wrote:

It's like the "WoW is dead" meme - I don't like the game anymore so obviously the game is dying and something something WoW killer and blah blah vanilla was better, the new content is bad.

ResidentSleeper

well looking at the steam charts it looks like he is right though

on the other hand: dish out a good league and the numbers will rise.

Still worried about what they give us with poe2

I'm confused, when I look at steam charts I actually see a higher monthly average than what we had in march by a few thousand players?
https://steamcharts.com/app/238960#1m

edit:made link clickable

just compare the curve, the nose dive starvest makes compared to other leagues where the curve is ...more healthily rounded
from 132k players in march 74k were left one month into the league

from 125k players in june only 44k players are left one month into the league

"

pr13st wrote:

The only problem will be when a PoE killer comes along, and it will for sure.

Everybody and their mothers are too busy making Battle Royal games , to have time for creating ARPGs .

"

Certainly there is significantly less forum activity to date. This place used to thrive.

It used to thrive because of creative builds. They have been disappearing, so now the only thing left to do on the forums is vent pent up frustrations. It's not that the creative builds aren't around, it's just that the grind to even test one is now unreasonable (for me at least).