3.16 was GGG's biggest debacle. Giving them one more league to right the ship.

My personal thinking is that CW said a lot on streams that HE (his team?) sure that changes have been made in right direction which could means that nothing will be returned. We will see a little fixes and continue of development of complications in how we play acts and all the rest content. Optimization of Atlas needs only because less players reached it at all with all this nerfs - LOL. Toxic rain (diff variations of cold versions) + Skeletons + mb traps + extra expensive coc = nothing new here.

I spent 400 hours on 3.14 and bought 2 supporter packs - it was my only game during this 3 months, and just spent around 50 hours on 3.15 and bought nothing (would like to get this pack with Anubis look but not after 3.15 expression). But things that happen with me because of this low amount of hours in PoE during 3.15: i've spent PoE budget for 3.15 in Warframe, i've returned to Destiny 2 and bought preorder for next DLC which starts in 22.02.22 (which means i will be out of PoE this time even if next league will be nice), i've bought New World which will consume all my time if it would be not bad game. This is the story how PoE lose players and their budgets in short and mb even middle terms.

Sry for english. Got a lot of things that want to share with all of you and lack of skills ))

"

Phrazz wrote:

I'm only concerned if the steam numbers we see now, becomes a trend over several leagues. One bad league? We've had that before.

This basically. If Grim Dawn has 2-4 leagues in a row more players in the last month we can talk about QoL and fun in the base game, and maybe the devs take this as a warning sign if nothing else raises their attention.

In POEs case with repeating leagues it is normal that we have extreme spikes (in concurrent players) in a 3 month league cadence.

But the real quality ,imo, of the base game (for constant player retention or high player count) is only shown in the last month when the league players move on and standard league players take over.

I do not understand. 3.16 isn't out yet, you do not even know the contents of the patch, why are you whining about it?

I do not play the game any more but do check in from time to time and there's always a couple of whine threads on the main page about this nerf that nerf, its the same sob story over and over again for years. Guess what, each league I did play as a casual scrub was pretty fun, for the short time my schedule allowed.

As an outsider what I can tell from the player base numbers is that the game is very alive and kicking, yet there are these same people filling the forums with toxic posts because of how GGG failed them due to x or z.

GGG is successful because they make changes for the game not the players. Players in general are terrible developers because they lack perspective and they are quick to jump on bandwagons, which is why GGG doesn't cater to the feedback.

For example, I'm a long term PoE veteran, but I hadn't played since 3.8 because I was busy playing WoW classic. When I came back for 3.15 I had 2 years of catching up to do and it's been a blast. Nothing about 3.15 makes the game feel like its in a worst state then when I left it. My experience and option is clearly different from those who had been actively playing this whole time.

To me that makes the 3.15 hate seem like its not due to the substance of the patch or actual state of the game, but because it doesn't change the state of the game in any fundamental way. It's 3.14 with a different spawn monsters league mechanic and a couple of unpopular nerfs.

"

Hackusations wrote:

To me that makes the 3.15 hate seem like its not due to the substance of the patch or actual state of the game, but because it doesn't change the state of the game in any fundamental way. It's 3.14 with a different spawn monsters league mechanic and a couple of unpopular nerfs.

Nah, for the large part, the 3.15 hate comes from it feeling like a significantly inferior version of 3.13, which hit extra hard because 3.14 already felt like a slightly inferior version of 3.13 - when a lot of people feel like the game is being made progressively less fun, they tend to try to have their voices heard.

"

Hackusations wrote:

To me that makes the 3.15 hate seem like its not due to the substance of the patch or actual state of the game, but because it doesn't change the state of the game in any fundamental way. It's 3.14 with a different spawn monsters league mechanic and a couple of unpopular nerfs.

Im not one who was particularly worried about the nerfs, but let's be clear, builds were nerfed across the board by 30 to 90 percent of their dps.

This is after huge cuts to effective power in 3.14 from 3.13 by curb stomping Harvest.

The cumulative impacts of these nerfs is probably minimum cutting dps by 50%, up to perhaps 95%.

Thats NOT a couple of nerfs.


Second, for those who hate the horrid RNG fest that is PoE crafting, 3.13 represents by far the best the game has ever been (even if I agree it needed tuning, like best harvest crafts should come after beating Sirus AL8, not running a random T11 map, and crafts should not be tradeable nor items harvest-crafted)

"

trixxar wrote:

Second, for those who hate the horrid RNG fest that is PoE crafting, 3.13 represents by far the best the game has ever been (even if I agree it needed tuning, like best harvest crafts should come after beating Sirus AL8, not running a random T11 map, and crafts should not be tradeable nor items harvest-crafted)

Yeah, but just because you hate RNG doesn't mean its bad for the game. It just means its an obstacle you don't like that's between you and the thing you want. Wanting things is part of what motivates you to play and getting things that aren't accessible, aren't easy, or aren't normal to get creates the highs we all chase.

You know there was another ARPG where people complained about RNG and so the devs normalized the most powerful items. People had nothing to chase so they added an uber version of those items and when that got boring they added a super uber version. Last I heard they brought "new life" to the game with super duper uber weapon versions.

"

Hackusations wrote:

GGG is successful because they make changes for the game not the players. Players in general are terrible developers because they lack perspective and they are quick to jump on bandwagons, which is why GGG doesn't cater to the feedback.

For example, I'm a long term PoE veteran, but I hadn't played since 3.8 because I was busy playing WoW classic. When I came back for 3.15 I had 2 years of catching up to do and it's been a blast. Nothing about 3.15 makes the game feel like its in a worst state then when I left it. My experience and option is clearly different from those who had been actively playing this whole time.

To me that makes the 3.15 hate seem like its not due to the substance of the patch or actual state of the game, but because it doesn't change the state of the game in any fundamental way. It's 3.14 with a different spawn monsters league mechanic and a couple of unpopular nerfs.

The reason u feel this way is becouse you missed out on 3.13.

Most people that played 3.13 don't feel like playing the game in it's current state.

This league had a bitchin' start tho, it would be great if the population would continue to be so low so we don't have more streamer queue shitfests.

"

Hackusations wrote:

Yeah, but just because you hate RNG doesn't mean its bad for the game.

For sure. However, the numbers dont particularly support the argument that removing determinism increased players interest in the game either.